


Three of Wands

by themuggleriddle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Corpses, Crime, Crime Solving, F/M, Gen, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Muggles, Murder, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, aka wizards don't give a shit about muggles, also lots of friendship, and adults being in doubt with their life choices, and so non-magical people need to get the work done, mention of suicide, wizarding worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9147475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuggleriddle/pseuds/themuggleriddle
Summary: After the investigations regarding the deaths of the three Riddles of Little Hangleton failed to explain anything about the mysterious crime, the doctor responsible for the post-mortem examination of the family decides to take the case into his own hands and seeks the help of the former main suspect, the gardener Frank Bryce.Now it's up to the two Muggles to find out how three people dropped dead at the same night and if it can be related to the strange stories Tom Riddle used to tell about how he had once been bewitched by the daughter of the village's tramp.





	1. July the 14th, 1943

**Author's Note:**

> This story was some kind of a prompt given to me by Vika (highonbooks). It was also written with her help in several aspects of the world-building, plot and motivation. The Original Character presented here was created by Thams (eyesofeagle, on tumblr) and he was used by both of us in a HP role play of ours... Feliks, therefore, grew as a character with the help of all of the RP crew (Thams, Vika, Cella/otomriddle/voldybadass and I). So, this story is dedicated to Vika, who pushed me to write it, and to Thams, who 3 years ago created the best OC we could have to work with.
> 
> As I'm brazilian and our forensic science departments are way too different from the UK's (aka no one takes our forensic science department seriously), I tried my best to write something that is correct based on researches I did. This is a work of fiction, written with the intent of having fun and making those who read it have fun too, so I'm sorry if something is too different from reality in regards to the forensic and pathology field in the UK during the 1940s.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it. I, as someone who loves to play with the HP universe, had a lot of fun writing this story.
> 
> Any character or concept you may recognize from the canon HP stories belong to JK Rowling.

 

**July the 14th, 1943**

**.**

The police's report was as confusing as it could be.

A couple and their adult son had been found dead inside their house on that morning and no one in East Yorkshire had thought they were experienced enough to perform the autopsy on the bodies. To Dr Feliks Ravenwood, it was a silly excuse not to do their work, but he also knew, from the report, that the case had already raised too much speculation and rumours around the neighbouring cities and villages. Given the context, summoning a professional from the capital was a good move to show people that the police were trying hard to get that odd situation sorted out in the best way possible.

And now, after receiving a telegram earlier that day telling him to get on the first train he could find, Feliks had finally arrived at Beverly (as that was where the bodies had been taken) only to find its coroner's office full of policemen trying to deal with the journalists (most of them from small county tabloids that couldn't stand publishing stuff related to the war anymore) who wanted to know more about the Riddle case.

"Dr Ravenwood?" a middle-aged man with a thick moustache approached him as soon as Feliks squeezed through the journalists. "Glad to see you. I'm Dr David Collins, I've asked the Chief Inspector to ask you for help." Collins pushed the man across the office's hall until they crossed a door and entered an empty corridor. "Have they told you anything about what happened?"

"Just the basic: three people found dead inside their house in a small village in East Yorkshire with no apparent manner of death," said Feliks, looking around before following the other man into a small office.

"I imagine Chief Linwood didn't give you any more details because he wanted you to come as soon as possible." David laughed, before handing him a file brimmed with typed pages and a few photographs. "Earlier today, around 6:30 AM, a maid named Margareth Norton arrived at the house of the Riddle family, in Little Hangleton, to find three dead bodies in the drawing room. The bodies belonged to Thomas Christopher Riddle, 63 years old, Mary Elizabeth Riddle, 60, and Thomas Felix Riddle, 38. The three of them were healthy and until now, from what our team has analysed, there was no evidence of violence towards them. The house was intact, there was nothing out of place inside the drawing room, the doors of the house had not been forced open and the state of the bodies was perfect. It's as if the three of them dropped dead all of sudden, for no reason at all."

Feliks looked through the photos inside the file. Three of them showed the Riddle family: a woman with dark hair speckled with white and a delicate face, a stern man with greying hair and a younger man with a handsome, yet tired face. The other photographs had been taken earlier that day and showed a richly decorated drawing room with three bodies lying on its floor. One of the bodies, that of the woman, was lying on its back in the space between the sofa and the grand piano; the one that belonged to the older man was right in front of an armchair, by the fireplace, lying on its front; and the last one, the younger of the Riddles, was on its back, a few feet away from the door, with its face slightly tilted to the opposite side of the room, as if the corpse had been trying to avoid looking to the other bodies. The rest of the room had no sight, at least from the photos, of a fight or anything like that.

"What else do we know about them?"

"Well, they were rich people. The family owns several houses and apartments throughout England, they lived out of renting their properties. There were no other relatives," Collins explained and then sighed. "You see, the people in Little Hangleton said they were odd people… Well, actually they said they were rude and that not many people liked them in the village. But 'odd' was a description many people gave of them."

"Odd in what way exactly?" asked Feliks, arching an eyebrow as he looked up from the papers.

"As you'll see in the reports, the villagers tell of a rather weird story regarding the son, Tom Riddle. They say the man once ran away with a local girl and vanished for almost a year," said David, scratching the back of his head. "When he came back, people say he had gone mad: he kept talking about being bewitched by the said girl, he became afraid of leaving the house and, by the end of 1926, he had attempted suicide. He was institutionalized for a few weeks before Mr and Mrs Riddle managed to take him home again." The man shrugged. "Apparently his grandfather, a certain Gregory Riddle from Great Hangleton, went down the same way. People in the village say it's in the family."

"And is the police suspecting he might have done something and taken his parents with him?" asked Feliks, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Yes and no… Apparently the lad had gotten better over the past few years. He was still a bit scared of several things, but it's been seventeen years since it happened and there's no recent medical reports of him having suicide ideation or attempts," he explained. "The main suspect is their gardener, a young man called Frank Khaled Bryce, Lieutenant of the 5th Infantry Division, honorably discharged after being wounded. The Riddles employed him after he came back from the war with an injured leg and a bad temper. The cook and the maid said he was the only other person who had the keys to the house."

"And why would the gardener kill them? Is he, I don't knowdinnae ken, mentioned on the Riddle's will or something?"

"He is but he would make more money working for them rather than inheriting what Mr Riddle would leave him."

"Then why?"

"Maybe he went mad? They say he's a strange lad, Frank Bryce. That he's reclusive and rude, afraid of loud noises and easily irritated by the kids when they try to poke fun at him. He's basically an old man in the body of a 26-year-old."

"Weren't Wasn't Tom Riddle the reclusive rude man that was scared of everything?" asked Ravenwood, raising arching a brown eyebrow.

"Well, he was too… Maybe it was a pattern followed by the men in that house?" said Collins, letting out a nervous laugh.

Feliks laughed, shaking his head while he closed the file, taking care for none of the papers and photos in it to slip out. When he looked at Collins again, the man watched him closely and expectantly.

"Could I… Start the necropsies tomorrow?" asked Ravenwood. "It's a bit late and the day was a little exhausting with the travel."

"Oh, of course." David took a step back and let his shoulders slump a little, looking a little disappointed now. "I believe there's an inn a few blocks from here. Tell them you're here working with me, I bet they'll make a better price for a room."

Feliks almost felt bad for how disappointed the man had looked. Everyone was expecting an answer for the deaths of the Riddle family, but what could he do? After he received the telegram, Ravenwood had to finish identifying a dead body found in an abandoned house that had been bombed two years earlier, and then there was the hours inside the train until he arrived at Beverley… He was tired, even though he was curious about the Riddles. But he knew there was no chance he would do a good job if he opened them up right now, while his body begged for a good meal and a bed.

The inn – _The Hermit Inn_ – was not the most luxurious one, but it was one of the cheapest, according to its owner, who served Feliks his dinner all the while talking about how his grandparents had built that house and how it had been the family business ever since. It was not bad, but the bed creaked every time he turned in it and the chat of drunken men could be heard by his window until around one in the morning. But all of this didn't really bother Ravenwood: his mind had been too focused on the Riddles while he read the reports and analysed the photographs and,photographs. Oonce he put all of it it down, his head was too clouded to register anything but the slight smell of mould that emanated from the pillow.

* * *

In the beginning of the morning, Tom Riddle was a stiff body on the top of the morgue's slab. His blue eyes were cloudy and looking more sunken into his skull than when he was alive. His dark brown hair was damp, its curls looking undone and messy, with a thin layer of what looked like ice on its strands and on his eyebrows and eyelashes. His pale skin looked greyer more grey and the sparse freckles on his nose seemed to stand out on the dull colour, while his lips looked bluish. The man was tall and lean and now his chest, ridden of all the air that had once filled his lungs, seemed to sink in, making it look like as if it was completely empty. From the photos, Tom Riddle seemed to be a handsome man in his late thirties, but now he was just a stiff body whose death made itself more and more present with each minute that passed.

By the end of the morning, Tom Riddle was still a dead body with _rigor mortis_ making its muscle lock into place, but now with its chest and abdomen emptied of its contents after being opened by Dr Ravenwood and, later, closed once again with a suture that now formed a Y shape on his body. His skull had also been pried open, his brain looked at and weighted before putting the skullcap on its place once again and having the scalp stitched close.

After the whole process _(opening, empting, closing, washing),_ all Feliks Ravenwood could think about was how every single organ of the man was in perfect shape. His heart was the right size with its arteries clear of any fat plaque, his brain had no atrophy and no bleeding, his liver was soft with no vestige of nodules, his stomach had no bleeding or ulcers, his lungs were of the right pinkish colour without any bubbles left by emphysema or abnormal masses, and his aorta and pulmonary vein were clean, without any trace of a blood clot that could have clogged it. There was no sign of a gunshot or stab wound or even bruises on his neck suggesting that he might have been strangled. The only abnormal marks on his bodies were a small scar on his right knee and the self-inflicted scars on his wrists, the remains of the story Collins had told Feliks the previous day. It seemed as if he had simply dropped dead, which and that wouldn't be too weirdstrange if he was the only one to die in that night.

But that was not the case. Thomas and Mary Riddle had been found dead too and the signs on their bodies exhibited indicated that the three of them had, most likely, died around the same time. And, what was even more surprising, the bodies of the elderly couple followed the same pattern as their son's: nothing indicated the cause of death. The only thing worth being noted was Mr Riddle's mitral valve of the heart having its leaflets thickened with signs of fusion here and there, something that might indicate heart failure in the future but that right now it didn't make any difference as his heart seemed about the right size and shape.

By the end of the autopsies, Dr Ravenwood had nothing to say aside from what the police had already known: there was no apparent cause of death and the manner of death was still undetermined. He doubted any test he asked to be ran on blood or the stomach's contents would come with anything new. It was frustrating, having three healthy people dead in front of him and not being able to understand how they ended up like that. He felt even worse when he stopped to think that he had opened, examined and closed the three of them, coming out without any answer and leaving a terrible job for the mortician who would look after the bodies once they were released to the funerary home.

* * *

"I'm sorry," said Feliks, as he took a last look at the three corpses laying on top of the slabs in the morgue. One of the assistants was busy pushing Mrs Riddle into her drawer. If he was honest with himself, the doctor would admit he didn't know if he was apologising to Collins, who had hoped for an answer through his work, or to the Riddles, whose deaths were still a mystery.

"Don't worry," said David Collins as he buried his hands into his pockets. "Are you sure you can't rule it as a natural death, though?"

"Three healthy people don't just drop dead together in one night, you know that," he said, sighing. "But there's not enough evidence to rule it as an accident or a murder either." The man looked at the corpses once again, furrowing his brows and approaching Tom Riddle's body.

"What's wrong?" asked David.

"It's just…" Feliks reached the corpse's right hand, rubbing his fingers against it and trying to clean a faint bluish stain on his cold skin. The stain spread on the man's skin as his fingers brushed it, looking almost like wet paint, before finally fading. "Riddle was a painter, right?"

"From what we gathered, he did paint and draw occasionally."

"His hand was dirty with paint," he said, trying to remember if he had seen it before. Feliks stared at the body, noticing that the thin layer of ice covering Tom Riddle's eyelashes, eyebrows and hair was still there. "You should check the drawers temperature later, Dr Collins. You'll end up mimicking _rigor mortis_ with its temperature."

"What?" the man asked, cocking his head.

"The corpses had a bit of ice on them. It must have been the low temperature of the drawers to keep them cool."

"Where?" he asked, approaching the slabs and looking the corpse from head to toe with a frown on his face, before shaking his head. "Oh… I'll look into it later," said the other man, before letting out a deep sigh and turning around to leave the morgue. "Let's go, I'll pay you a dinner before you go back to your inn to write your report."

* * *

Feliks Ravenwood was supposed to go back to London on the following day. He had looked into the train schedules for one that left would leave at the afternoon, but when the clock struck midday, he was still in bed, listening to the sounds of the inn and staring at his own right hand.

He had noticed the blue stain on his fingertips while he was drinking with Collins, the previous night. At first, Feliks had thought it was a stain from the carbon paper he had been using earlier to fill his paperwork, but after washing his hands for a few good minutes and still seeing the bluish mark on his fingers, he started to worry as he remembered he had seen something similar on Tom Riddle's corpse.

He had tried to sleep and failed during most of the night as he tried to ignore the blue stain on his fingers. But the more he tried to ignore it, the more he remembered not just that, but also the tiny specks of ice he had seen on the corpses. Neither Collins nor the morgue assistant had noticed these details and it was not the first time something like that had happened.

The doctor still remembered when he was around six years old and still lived in Inverness. There was a family who lived near the village, he couldn't remember their surname, but he could easily remember how sometimes there was a trail of orange dust that followed their daughter's, Arabella, hands when she was playing with the other children. Feliks had asked her what was that pretty dust she played with, but she said there was no such thing. When he tried to ask the other children if they could see it too, all of them denied it.

Years later, while at an old bookshop near Dufftown, Ravenwood could swear he saw what looked like webs of silver binding the bookseller's hands to some of his books. He was eleven years old then and his uncle had said he had such a vivid imagination, something common for a child that age.

He kept seeing things where there should be nothing. It was never something big, he never saw a dead person or a weird creature: it was always these details, colours or shadows that painted the world in a different way for his eyes. When Feliks learned about synaesthesia, he told himself that was the most logical explanation and now, most of the times, he managed to simply ignore the colourful tricks his mind played on his vision.

But, for some reason, not today. He could just stare at the blue stain on his fingers and remember how it had been on Riddle's corpse before. Or think about the thin layer of ice on the man's eyelashes that should have melted after a few minutes while he had been left outside the drawer on a hot summer day.

He needed to take one last look at the bodies and the train to London would have to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) cause of death: it's what caused the death... a disease, a wound, etc.
> 
> 2) manner of death: it describes the nature of the death, if it was an accident, a homicide, a natural death, a suicide, etc. Dr Ravenwood most likely put the cause of death as cardiac arrest, but the manner of death remained undetermined.
> 
> 3) Feliks is Scottish. I love accents, I'm trying to give his lines a bit of a Scottish way of speaking,but I don't want to change it too much from 'regular English' because, as a non native speaker, I know how hard and annoying it can be when you try to read something and every single line of a character is filled with accents and such; also, I'm not an expert on Scottish accent/slangs, so... yeah.
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and, please, give it a chance hahah. I know it centers around an OC, but I promise there's a lot of elements from the wizarding world and characters you'll recognize from the canon.


	2. A Painted Garden

**A Painted Garden**

**.**

Little Hangleton was a small village that would be really beautiful if it wasn't for some of its inhabitants. Since he first stepped into that place, Feliks started to notice people whispering or pointing at him, asking who he might be and what would he be doing there… Was he from the police? Would he be looking into the Riddles murder? Would he interview more people to gather information? Or was he a journalist, eager to learn more about the mysterious deaths in the Riddle house? How old was he? Was he married? Where was he from?

The villagers didn't have much time to watch him, though. Ravenwood made a quick stop on the pub, The Hanged Man, to ask if the Riddles had already been buried and, if not, where he could find their funeral. The barman told him the directions to the graveyard just outside the village's limits, eyeing him with suspicion as he walked out. Surely he would soon start to tell the others about what that stranger was doing in their hometown.

Although the day had started with a clear sky in Beverly, by the time Feliks reached Little Hangleton, late in the afternoon, the clouds were starting to gather and the sound of thunders could be heard rolling in the distance, announcing a summer rain. When he reached the graveyard, the sky was dark with clouds.

The reports surely weren't lying about how unpopular the Riddles had been in life. The chapel where the funeral was taking place was empty save for a man in military uniform standing near the coffins. He looked stiff and not very happy as he leaned on a walking stick and watched Ravenwood approach the corpses. Well… He would be quick, so there was no need to worry about some grumpy lad, right?

Feliks went for Tom Riddle first, furrowing his brows as the first thing he noticed was how, even though he now looked rosy and somehow alive, the mortician has managed to hide his freckles behind the make-up he had used. What was the use of all that embalming to make the dead seem natural if it took away the characteristics from the person they had once been? But, even though his skin looked blushed and his freckles were gone, the tiny layer of ice was still there, clinging to his eyebrows and eyelashes. The man's hair had been combed and the curls were gone too, but, if he looked closely, the specks of ice again, entwined in the dark brown strands, were still there.

Ravenwood looked at the man's hands, folded over his chest, but there was no sight of the blue stain on them anymore. Staring at the Tom's face once again, the doctor brushed his fingers on his eyebrows, seeing what seemed dust (or was it ice?) coming out on his skin, but not disappearing from Riddle's anyway.

"Excuse me." Feliks jumped, startled, and turned to see the man in uniform scowling at him. "May I ask what you're doing, _sir?"_

"I just…" he started talking, but stopped and shook his head. The frown on the man's face deepened. "I've heard of what happened and thought it would be good to come and… Offer my condolences."

The doctor saw the other man's brow rising as he obviously didn't trust in his answer. Maybe it was time to go. He had been away from London for three days now even though his work here had already been done… Not to mention it was time for those people be put to rest. They may have been looking good thanks to a day in the refrigerator and, now, to the chemicals of embalming, but the Riddle's had been dead for almost three days now.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said, bowing his head as he quickened his steps to exit the chapel.

When Feliks reached the village, the rain started to pour down and the barman at The Hanged Man ended up convincing him to stay during the night, alleging there would be no way someone would be willing to give him a lift to Beverley under that rain. Therefore, the night was filled with the villagers' gossip about the Riddle family, but Ravenwood had to admit that it was good they would not shut up about that, for it was because of the gossip and rumours that he finally understood who the man at the funeral was.

"He was always odd, Frank. If you ask me, it's in his blood, you know? I mean, his mother…" said a woman called Dot, who took the empty place on the table where Feliks was finishing his soup that night. "And then he came back from the war and became even weirder."

Frank Bryce, the gardener who had been accused of murdering the Riddle family. He had seen a photo of him in the files he had received, but the man had looked younger and… Less serious in them. Now, as he tried to remember what Bryce looked like in the dim chapel, all he could remember were the scowl on his face and the stiffness of his body.

"What do you mean by weirder?" asked Feliks, feeling bad as he noticed he was trying to gain information by feeding the villagers' need for gossip.

"He's all quiet and he's been isolating himself over the past few years," said Dot. "His life was that garden. He lived to tend Mrs Riddle's flowers. Sometimes I wonder if he and Mrs Riddle didn't-"

"Don't go making up crazy stories, Dot!" said the barman, laughing.

"If the young Mr Riddle 'ad an affair of his own when everyone else expected he married some stuck up girl from Great 'angleton, I do not see why Mrs Riddle couldn't have something 'erself," the woman said and then looked back to Feliks. "Besides, it would explain why Frank finished them all, wouldn't it?"

"Actually, it didn't look like a passionate murder," said Ravenwood before he could stop himself. "Passionate crimes are usually messy and involve gunshots or several stabbing wounds." He saw Dot's eyes widen as he spoke and couldn't help but think that it was not such a surprising information. But, again, he was in a village in the middle of East Yorkshire, not in the morgue in London, where murdered lovers were nothing out of the ordinary. "It was… Too clean."

"You from the police, lad?" asked the barman.

"No…" he said. He didn't want people to know he had worked in the Riddle case; it would be a pain in the arse to deal with their questioning. "I just heard about it."

"And what did you 'ear about it?"

"That the three Riddles appeared dead one morning and there was no evidence of what happened," he said, repeating the simplified story he had been first told about the episode. "That the forensics couldn't rule it as a murder."

"But Frank-"

"I heard they didn't find anything that linked the deaths to someone," said Feliks, shrugging and, while Dot and the barman discussed the inefficiency of the local police, looked at his own hand, seeing the ice-like dust still on his skin, now looking almost like frost. "If you'll excuse me… I think I'll go to bed. It's been a long day."

Feliks could still feel the looks of the villagers burning on his back as he walked to the second floor of the pub, where he had rented a room to spend the night. Sleep took more time to come that night, as he didn't have the alcohol in his blood nor the tiredness of a train journey to help his eyes give in to rest.

* * *

The Riddle house was big when compared to the rest of Little Hangleton's houses, and it stood on a privileged place on the top of a small hill facing the village. The gates were unlocked and, after hesitating for a while, Feliks crossed them and entered the well-kept garden full of green bushes in perfect shape and flowers of the most diverse colours: there were beautiful red and white roses, pinkish geraniums and foxgloves, bell-like lilies of the valley and bluebells, purple lavenders, simple and yet beautiful daisies and primroses, even sweet-smelling gardenias.

It was almost funny how the colours of the flowers made him remember the weird dream he had the previous night, after falling asleep in his small rented room at the Hanged Man: in the dream, he was in what looked like a castle and the colours his synaesthesia brought to his sight were so intense almost every corner was filled with them. He even saw Tom Riddle in the dream (clearly a sign he should try and get his head cleared from that case), his long fingers stained with a blue colour way more vivid than what he had seen in the morgue while he played with what had looked like gardenias.

But now the colours he was seeing belonged to the flowers and… _All right,_ he could see a small outline of silver or blue in some flowers, but the doctor tried to tell himself that maybe his mind was really playing tricks on him and that was only the hot sun's effect on his head.

The man walked around the house, briefly looking at its closed windows and wondering what would he see if he had walked that property during the time the Riddles were alive. Would Mrs Riddle be tending her flowers or sitting amongst them while knitting? Would he see Mr Riddle standing by the doorway, watching his wife? And would Tom Riddle be peeking out of a window, too afraid to step out of his house but eager to enjoy a nice day in the garden? It didn't really matter now as all he could see were the closed curtains.

Once he reached the other side of the house, he saw a small cottage on the other side of the lawn, next to a kitchen garden. Feliks felt his pulse quicken. There was a clear reason why he had chosen to be a pathologist and it was because a pathologist didn't have much contact with patients… It was not that he was bad when interacting with people (he had ministered classes and talked with fellow doctors and even patients many times), it was just that he got nervous when the subject of the talk was important and he preferred to avoid that feeling.

When Ravenwood knocked on the cottage's door, he didn't really know what he was going to say to Mr Bryce and he didn't have enough time to think about it because soon the gardener was there, with the door open and staring at him.

Now that they were not in a dark chapel, Feliks could see that Frank Bryce had a stubborn jaw and a very serious face, like someone who was used to be mocked and couldn't stand it. He was not scarred like other men from the fronts (or at least not where it could be seen), but was not handsome either, with dull brown hair and eyes and a light brown skin. The look he gave the doctor was one with a clear objective: to make him know he was not welcome there. That same serious, unimpressed look seemed to shift for a split second, as if he had remembered something, before setting back into his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gardener and Feliks could just think that his job was with the corpses, he shouldn't be there. Firstly, because it was not his job and, secondly, because he didn't know how to deal with grief-stricken, clearly angry gardeners.

"Hi," he said, trying to smile and thinking he must have failed on his attempt of a friendly smile, because Bryce simply furrowed his brows. "We've met yesterday-"

"I remember."

"My name is Feliks, Feliks Ravenwood. I'm a doctor, I worked on the…" he started speaking and ended up letting his voice trail away as he looked at the house behind them. "The Riddles."

"You're the one who cut them open," said Frank, looking, if possible, even less amused.

"I was the one who performed the post mortem examination, aye," said Feliks, feeling his cheeks burn. He should not be ashamed of his work, right? But the way that man talked made it look like he had cut his beloved family open and took away their organs to mix them in a soup or to sell them on the black market. "I wondered if I could have a word with you, Mr Bryce-"

"I've already told the police everything I could. I guarantee, sir, there's nothing I could tell you they don't know yet, so you should just go back to Great Hangleton and read their reports," said Bryce, starting to close the door and then scowling even more when the doctor stopped it with his hand, which was quickly withdraw after he'd noticed what he had done.

"Please! I know you didn't do it," said Ravenwood, taking a step back just in case. "There was no evidence of the cause of death and we couldn't even find out the manner of death… You ken, if it was natural or accidental or a murder. And you dinnae have any motivation for killing them, if it really was a murder. The accusation makes no sense, well, aside from the fact you had the key to the house-"

"If I agree to answer whatever you want me to answer, will you please stop talking like that?" the gardener asked, raising a hand as if asking for a break.

Feliks opened his mouth to answer, but then simply nodded. He had to learn how to control himself when talking about the dead. It was easy to forget, for a moment, that the bodies were real people that, four days ago, had been alive and talking to Frank Bryce. When the gardener opened the door a bit more and waved for him to follow, Ravenwood entered the cottage, looking around with attention.

"Go on," said Bryce, as limped over to the stove to tend a boiling kettle.

"As I said I performed the necropsies on the Riddles," the man explained. "And I saw something… I couldn't really put down on the reports, but that caught my attention and I wanted to ask you if I could enter the house to… See if I find something in there."

"What exactly did you see that you couldn't write down on an _official_ report?" asked Frank, turning around to shoot a judgmental look at him. "And what do you want to find in the house? There's nothing there, just the stuff the Riddles left behind. As you must have heard, there was no blood or anything that a doctor could examine in there."

Ravenwood watched as the man reached for a small tin can and took out a tangle of brown roots from it. A foul smell filled the small kitchen as Bryce put some of the roots inside a tin mug and then poured the hot water over it. Feliks couldn't help but feel bad for the man, wondering how bad had his last few days been for him to try and seek help from valerian root to calm his nerves.

"As I said, the autopsies were classified as undetermined, because there was nothing wrong with the bodies, but… There was, well." The doctor laughed. How would he explain what he had seen? "They seemed frozen-"

"I do hope they keep them cold before one of you cut them open," said the gardener. "I believe you need to work on a fresh corpse and not on a rotting one, right?"

"Aye, but they're not supposed to be frozen and… There was frost on their faces. Well, on the younger Tom Riddle's face. And on their funeral, it was still there! If it was ice, it should have melted by then," said Ravenwood as he watched the other stir the tea in his mug and, then, slowly pick out the roots to set them on the sink. "And Tom Riddle's hand was stained-"

"He painted. His hands were always stained with paint, he couldn't paint without making a mess of himself, not like Mrs Mary," said Frank, promptly.

"I know he was a painter, but his body had been washed by the time I arrived, there shouldn't be any paint on it-"

"And why couldn't you write down on your report anything about the strange paint stain and the frost on his face?" asked Bryce, finally taking a sip from his tea and looking at the other with disdain on his face..

"Because… I know other people don't see it," said Feliks in a small voice, looking around in order to avoid seeing the look the other would give him.

There was a brief moment of silence until the man risked looking at the other again.

"You're telling me you were slightly delirious while you were doing your job, saw things that were not really there and now want me to let you inside the house I'm supposed to look after so you can see if you find more of your imaginary evidence in there?" Bryce slowly asked, as if trying to understand how crazy all of that was. "You, sir, should go treat yourself to stop seeing stuff before trying to cut people open to discover why they died. No wonder your autopsy came without a good answer."

"There's nothing wrong with me, I can assure you, Mr Bryce, and I take my job very seriously, otherwise I wouldn't be here right now," said Feliks. "And if I was seeing stuff, I would be hallucinating, not being delirious-"

"In a few minutes you'll tell me the Riddles were abducted by the fairies and the corpses were changelings, won't you?" Alright, Frank Bryce was irritated and the doctor really didn't know how to make amends now. "Maybe that's how you fill in your reports in your country, but here it would be really appreciated if you gave us solid answers that could explain the _murder_ that happened in that house."

"I can assure you that me being Scottish has nothing to do with what I believe I saw," said Feliks, feeling his cheeks burn again and, as if just to annoy him, hearing his accent become even more evident now. "Besides, wasn't Tom Riddle the one who kept talking about weird stuff like witchcraft and such? I thought you'd be more open minded regarding this kind of-"

"Get out," said Bryce, limping to the door and throwing it open.

Ravenwood stared at the man for a while and then sighed, walking to the door. Part of his mind was agreeing with Bryce: how could he believe a trick of his mind might have some importance to that investigation? How could he come to that man's house and inquire him about a murder he had been wrongfully accused of? He was just proving to be a fool and a rude one at that.

The sunlight hurt his eyes when he stepped out of the cottage (its interior had been dark thanks to the closed curtains), but soon he was able to see the garden again. He heard muffled steps behind himself and turned to see Frank Bryce following him, using his cane as they crossed the property. He surely wanted to lock the gates now, to avoid nosy people like Feliks in there.

"I bet you take great care of them," said Ravenwood, trying to say anything to calm the other even if just a little bit, as he pointed to the bush of gardenias near them, their sweet smell filling his nostrils. He could see what looked like blue paint dripping from some petals along with the delicate outline of silver on others. "I bet the Riddles took great care of them too… You looked after the garden together, right? You and Mrs Riddle?"

"Mrs Riddle would never stop tending her garden," said Bryce, as he stopped walking and turned around to see the other man touching the white flowers with care, as if there was something more than just the velvety petals. "Everyone knew that."

"And Tom?" asked Feliks. The blue on the flower was the same shade of what he had seen on Riddle's hand, only more vivid. "I bet he liked them too. They… Feel like they're dripping with paint. You said he was a painter, aye? He must have liked this sensation." The doctor smiled as he stroked the gardenia, seeing the blue stain come out on his fingers. "They look like a painting where the artist tried to make them glow, with its paints still wet."

When no angry remark came from the gardener, Ravenwood realized he had been doing it all again: touching the flowers that had belonged to a dead woman and talking nonsense. But, when he turned around, expecting to see the angry scowl on Frank's face, he was surprised to see the man looking at him with his mouth slightly agape and curious eyes.

"I was talking my nonsense again, I'm sorry," said Feliks, starting to walk again but soon stopping as he saw the gardener not move. He was looking at him as if the doctor had said something really important.

"Mr Tom used to say sometimes he could feel them," said Bryce, pointing to the gardenias. "He said the gardenias felt like wet paint; the roses were warm like a summer day, and the daisies felt cold, as if they had been covered in frost." The man stared at the flowers for a while, before taking a deep breath and Ravenwood could swear he could see something different gleaming in his brown eyes, something that looked like he had been trying to keep deep down into his mind. "Tom was crazy about the gardenias. I told him their smell was too strong and sweet, that not everyone liked them, but he insisted that it was good, fresh and… They reminded him of a cool night with a good notebook and a palette of watercolours. Mrs Riddle loved the roses the best, she was always tending them, and she once said Mr Riddle liked the daisies, that she had always found it interesting how a man so serious and logical like him could see as beautiful a flower so simple as a daisy," he explained, slowly. "Mr Tom sometimes said that… His mother was the summer that could melt his father's winter-like persona."

The doctor watched as Bryce kept staring at the flowers, looking as if he was trying to make a good explanation to something in his head. When the man finally looked up, his face didn't look annoyed anymore, just confused and… Sad.

"He must have been someone nice to chat with," said Feliks. "Someone with an interesting view of the world."

"He was. And he usually took a long time to stop himself once he started speaking, especially when he had insomnia," said Frank, letting a weak laugh escape his mouth. "He would talk about how the flowers felt like, about what the stars might be trying to tell us, about what the foxes that sometimes entered the property were chasing, about the shapes he saw in the smoke of a cigarette." The gardener looked back at the house for a moment. "Sometimes he would stay quiet, though. He would come out in the middle of the night and sit down in the middle of the garden and just stare at the sky all night long… Sometimes he would sneak out and go to Hornsea, to be near the sea, and Mr Riddle would have to go after him the next morning, because sometimes he forgot his parents might be worried. But, even then, even when he was too quiet, he was still thinking about these stuff, one could tell. About the flowers that felt like painting and the stars that seemed to wish us good night."

The doctor remained in silence. He really had no idea of what to say right now… Frank Bryce had, all of sudden, left behind his angry façade, the character most people talked about in Little Hangleton, and now looked like what he really was at the moment: a man who had been wrongly accused of a crime and whose closest friends (for it was clear now that the Riddles stood for more than just his employers in Frank's eyes) had been murdered just a few days ago.

"I hope you enjoy tea or some cheap whiskey, that's all I can offer you right now, doc," said Bryce, before turning around and waving for the other to follow him, back in the direction of his cottage.


	3. House of Riddle, House of Gaunt

**House of Riddle, House of Gaunt**

**.**

The Riddle house was big and rich and silent. Frank said the silence was not a result of the family being dead: it had not been a household filled with noise even when they were alive.

"The piano was what you heard the most," the gardener explained as he watched Feliks enter the drawing room.

The grand piano near the window was what caught the doctor's attention first. He approached the instrument, opening its lid and carefully looking at its keys, a tiny smile tugging the corner of his lips as he saw the familiar blue stain on them. The colour was faint and it almost disappeared when Feliks brushed his fingers on it, sometimes pressing a key or another, making the notes fill the room.

But, as much as he enjoyed the blue, paint-like stain, it was not what he was looking for. After a few years working with pathology and forensics, Ravenwood knew he should work with solid evidence. His diagnosis was what he saw on a microscope and the cause of death was what he could find in the corpses, it was not an instinct. But, right now, he was allowing himself to follow something deep down inside himself, something that kept telling him that the blue thing he saw on Riddle's hand was not bad… No, what he had to look for was the frost that didn't melt during Summer. _That_ looked out of place, that was his clue.

The doctor looked around the room, remembering what he had seen in the photos of the murder. About two meters from where he was standing, Tom Riddle's body had been found. He crouched there and inspected the wooden floor, aware of Frank's eyes on him, but there was nothing there. He did the same with the area where Mary and Thomas Riddle's body were, but to no avail.

"What exactly are you looking for?" asked Bryce, leaning against the doorframe. He did not enter the drawing room, not even to show the other in.

"Something I found on Tom Riddle's body," he answered, looking around with care.

"The thing you couldn't write down because you were the only one able to see?"

"Aye." He saw Frank's lips press together in an unimpressed line, but soon the gardener seemed to relax again. "I know it sounds mad, trust me, otherwise I would have told someone else."

"You can't judge me for thinking it's weird," Bryce scoffed. "Usually when people say they can see things others can't, they end up receiving some kind of medical treatment."

Feliks wanted to remind him that most of the medical treatments in cases like this consisted of being locked up in an asylum and, maybe, going under some kind of therapy that included electroshock, insulin shock therapy or lobotomy. Ravenwood also wanted to remind him that Tom Riddle was probably a good candidate for these treatments, but that Frank didn't seem to mind this behaviour on the other man.

"Can you say again what you saw?" asked Frank.

"Riddle's hand was stained with blue, just like the flowers outside and the piano," he said, pointing at the instrument. "I thought it was paint, at first, but when I touched it, it didn't feel like wet or dry paint and I stayed with it on my own hand for hours. Then I saw the same thing on the flowers and now… I think it's something that belongs to him? Because it's on things he had more contact with, according to what you said."

"The piano and the gardenias."

"Exactly. But there was also what looked like frost on his face? On his eyebrows, lashes and his hair. That didn't look right."

"Now you're looking for… This frost-like thing?"

"Yes. The piano has nothing, just like the places where the bodies had been found, but there must be- _oh."_

Ravenwood stood in front of the fireplace, looking at the knickknacks that laid on the top of the mantelpiece: photographs, Russian nesting dolls, little silver boxes… It would be ordinary stuff if the glass of the photo-frames didn't look like they had been left outside during winter to freeze. He could still see the picture behind the glass (one of the three Riddles together and other two frames with a younger Mrs and Mr Riddle and Tom Riddle as a young man), but it was frozen, especially on its edges.

"Are you seeing something?" asked Bryce, stretching his neck and trying to see something.

"Aye," said Feliks, running a finger over the glass of Tom Riddle's photo and frowning as he noticed that here and there the cracks caused by the freezing looked a little blackened. "I am."

* * *

Upon a better inspection of the house, Feliks found the same frosted pattern on the doorknob of the back door and, in a lesser scale, on a few spots on the corridor's walls and on the mantelpiece itself. But, as Frank so kindly reminded him, it was not much of an evidence of anything.

"Please, don't do that," the gardener asked, making Ravenwood wake up from yet another moment of dozing off thinking about where he wanted to get with all of this.

"Do wha'?" he asked, blinking and staring at the other man who was sitting in front of him in the gardener's cottage.

"That thing where you look at nothing and look crazy. It's already weird when anyone does it, but those blue eyes of yours make it even worse. You look maniac," he said, taking a sip from the whiskey he had served them. "It was unnerving when I found Mr Tom doing it. He had the same blue eyes. He did it a lot."

The doctor looked at the whiskey inside his glass, moving it to see the movement of the liquid.

"What'll happen to the house?" Feliks asked.

"A couple who were friends with the Riddles inherited it. They're from London. Mr Campbell studied with Mr Tom when they were boys and he worked with them," he explained. "Mrs Campbell said they most likely won't move in. They have their life in London and they don't want to live in the place where their friends were murdered. I think they might put it to rent."

"And you?"

"I'll probably end up as the grumpy gardener that comes as a bonus," the man said, laughing. "Mrs Campbell said I can stay and care for the garden. They'll pay me." Frank relaxed on the chair and crossed his arm over his chest. "What about you, doc? What you gonna do now that you found… Whatever it is that you found?"

Feliks stared at the man for a while, trying to come up with a good answer, but apparently there was none. Right now, the realization that he had a morgue full of corpses and maybe some tissues waiting to be looked at, back in London, started to sink in and, suddenly, his trip to follow some kind of magical evidence started to look useless.

"I dinnae ken," he said, watching Bryce's brow arch.

The gardener took a deep breath and leaned towards the other, resting his elbows on the table.

"I should probably tell you to go back to London, to your job and family," said Frank, sighing. "But I think there might be somewhere else you can go looking for your… peculiar evidence."

* * *

Behind the Riddle house, among the Yorkshire fields, hedgerows and the eventual woods there was a road that, according to Frank Bryce, led to the seaside town of Hornsea. Along the road, tucked in the woods, was what the villagers from Little Hangleton called the Gaunt shack.

"The Riddles were not the only ones people thought odd," said Frank as they walked along the dirt road.

Ravenwood remembered the name Gaunt, it was the name of the girl with whom Tom Riddle ran away when he was younger. Bryce explained that the family was weird: the villagers said the Gaunts were around since ever, always hiding in those woods, living in a poorly kept shack and not mingling with the rest of Little Hangleton. The last Gaunts to have lived there were old Marvolo, who was already dead, and their children: Morfin and Merope.

"What if Morfin is at home?" asked Feliks as they approached the hedge, with the gardener in front of him, parting the branches with his walking-stick.

"Then we say I was helping the good doctor to find some kind of… Medicinal plant we thought we could find here," said Frank, shrugging, before he entered the hedge. "Look at this place. It's perfect to go looking for plants."

Ravenwood stepped in after him. Behind the hedge, they found a woodland filled with dark trees and the smell of wet dirt. There was a faded track on the ground where the vegetation didn't grow and Feliks could only imagine that, one day, that place could have had the same gravel road the Riddle house had.

"This must be private property," said Feliks. "We weren't supposed to enter to look for plants."

"The Riddle house is private property and I didn't attack you when you knocked on my door after entering it without permission," said Bryce, before coming to a halt.

Ahead of them there was a house, almost hidden amongst the trunks and vegetation that climbed on its walls. The windowsills were thick with grime, with the nettles that grew around the house almost reaching it. The roof seemed to have been patched up several times and there were still spots where the rafters were visible. Feliks remembered one of the morgue assistants that worked with him and who was constantly complaining about the humidity of their workplace: "It makes my nose all runny," he said… Now, the doctor could only think about the damage that house would make on his colleague's capricious nose.

By the look on Frank's face, it was the first time he was seeing that house too.

"Is that a snake?" asked Ravenwood, squeezing his eyes in order to have a better sight from where they stood.

"I think it is…" the other answered, approaching the shack.

"Wow," the doctor whispered, inspecting the thing that was nailed to the door and that, by now, was already starting to rot and had several orange-winged butterflies feeding on it, releasing a pungent smell.

"I told you they were odd," said Bryce, before knocking on the door with his cane. "I trust you know how to throw a punch?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If Gaunt becomes aggressive." The gardener stared at him for a moment, before shaking his head. "You know how to _kill_ people, but don't know how to punch someone?"

"I never needed _to_ ," whispered Feliks, looking back at the rotting snake.

They stood there for about three minutes before Bryce became impatient and knocked again. After their third attempt at knocking, the gardener decided that it meant Gaunt was not home at the moment and forced the door open.

"The wood is so rotten that it makes no difference being locked or not," he said as they entered.

As soon as he stepped inside, Ravenwood's sight became blurred as his glasses fogged with the hot, humid air in the shack. The doctor cursed under his breath as he took his glasses of to clean them with the tip of his vest.

"How the hell those people lived in 'ere?" He heard Frank ask, raising his head to look at the man and seeing just a blur of him before putting his glasses back and actually seeing the room around them.

It was filthy and dark. There was a wooden table and chair on one side and a stove with a cabinet filled with half-empty bottles, pots and pans, all of them looking dirty; the fireplace was empty, as the old armchair in front of it. There were two doors leading out of the main room, but Feliks didn't know he wanted to risk entering one of them just to find a really mad Morfin Gaunt, irritated for being woken from his nap by two strangers.

"Relax, doc," said Frank, slapping his shoulder and laughing. "Gaunt is not at home. We'd know if he was. Now, feel free to explore."

And explore he did. As soon as the shock of imagining people actually living in a place like that, Ravenwood's sight seemed to adjust to it and here and there several things started to appear. A moss-coloured glow on the armchair and on the bloodied knife on the top of the mantelpiece; darker greenish stains that were smudged on the windowsills; a solid pink, glowing goo clinging to the borders of a dark cauldron tucked underneath the grimy sink. The doctor asked Bryce if he could see all of the dubious things he was seeing, but his negative only confirmed that yes, those things were only visible to his eyes.

"You see these stuff all your life?" asked Frank, leaning against the stonewall as he didn't trust the wooden chairs ("I bet they're all rotten") nor the armchair ("I bet its full of fleas and other nasty stuff").

"Aye…" said Feliks as he entered the main room once again, after taking a look at the other two rooms (a bedroom with two single beds and another with a small double bed, neither had any sign of Morfin). "I just never paid much attention to it. I thought it was synaesthesia or something like that."

"You thought it was _what?"_

" _Synaesthesia_. It's when the brain interprets stimulation signs in the wrong way… You know, people who hear a sound and can see its colours or people who see letters or numbers in colours," he explained.

"And what sense of yours that stimulates you too see things?"

"That's a great question."

Ravenwood frowned as he saw a lamp by the door. The object didn't look out of place in a room filled with dirty furniture, empty bottles and pots still half-filled with what should be food, but the frozen glass on it was.

"You found something," said Frank, sounding amused.

"Did I now?" asked Feliks, crossing the room to reach for the lamp. The glass was cracked and foggy with the humidity, but the frost on it was as clear as it had been on the Riddle's photo-frames.

"You make a funny face when you notice something," said Bryce, walking over to him. "Looks like you've just seen the most beautiful lass. I hope no one sees you making that face to your corpses, otherwise they'd think you a loony."

"You think Morfin Gaunt could've killed the Riddles?" asked Ravenwood, getting up and turning the lamp in his hands.

"Yes," said Frank. "But not the way they were found."

"What do you mean?"

"The man was mad. Not mad like people said Mr Tom was… No, he was the aggressive kind of mad. It was rare, but he would eventually show up in the village, pick up a fight or two, brandish a stick in people's faces and then receive a punch to the nose that would make him scurry back home, cursing and making weird noises," the man explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if one day I opened the newspaper to read about how he murdered someone in a messy, fucked up way… You know, Jack the Ripper style. Not… The way the Riddles were found. Hell, I think that even I wouldn't be able to kill someone and leave nothing to tell the story."

"That's why we couldn't rule it as a murder," said Feliks, tucking the lamp under his arm and running his fingers under his glasses, wiping away the sweat. "God, let us leave this place. It's hot as hell in here. I think we've done enough for the day."

* * *

When it was time for Ravenwood to go back to The Hanged Man, Frank had warned him that the villagers would bomb him with questions.

"In their head, you spent the day with a murderer," said Bryce, laughing. Feliks couldn't help to think that the laughs he heard from the man during that day were all used to cover up something.

And, just as he had been warned, the barman, the barman's daughter and wife, the milkman, the owner of the flowershop, the son of the market's owner and Dot (whatever she did in the village) became extremely excited as they saw him enter the pubn. They asked him about Frank and about the Riddle house and why had the police sent him there if they had finished the investigation.

He gave them a poor answer (the police didn't send him there to investigate, they simply wanted him to tell the results of the autopsy to the gardener) and proceeded to go back to his room.

Feliks would be going back to London on the next day, he and Bryce had agreed on it. While in the capital, he would try and look for more information on the Gaunts, as he did feel like their trip to the Gaunt shack had added something to the story (again, the feeling that he wanted so badly to ignore). As for Frank, he would stay in Little Hangleton, earning his pay as he kept the Riddles' garden as pretty as it would have been if Mrs Riddle was still alive to look after it, at the same time he tried to see if Morfin made any new appearance at the village or at his own, seemingly abandoned, shack.

As the doctor fixed his suitcase to finally go back home, he managed to make enough space to tuck in the lamp he had found at the Gaunts. He had no idea of how it could help him, but he wanted to have it nearby, close enough for him to take a look at the frosted glass everytime he might think he was doing something senseless.


	4. Redcliffe Square Gardens

**Redcliffe Square Gardens**

**.**

**.**

Feliks Ravenwood sighed as he rested his pen on the table, staring at his signature on the report he had just finished writing. Three months had passed since he left Little Hangleton and now, as October rolled on and the signs of Autumn became more and more present, showing in the yellowing leaves of the trees and the chilly air of the afternoons, all the man could think about was how frustrated he had been in these last three months.

As soon as he reached London, back in July, Chief Inspector Harry Webster promptly scolded him for taking so long to come back. After that, Ravenwood tried not to step out of the line in the morgue, even though more than once he felt like paying a visit to East Yorkshire just to escape from the noise of the capital and exchange a few words with Frank Bryce. Being in the countryside reminded him of his childhood in Scotland and now he began to notice he missed the fresh air, the silence and the starry night sky that the villages away from big cities had to offer.

Feliks looked up from his desk, listening as the morgue assistant put the last body of the day back in its drawer, before opening one of his notebooks and pulling out an envelope. Now that his job was more than just identifying victims of the air-raids, his routine had become more interesting, but even with the new bodies that came into his morgue thanks to the increase of homicides since the beginning of the war, the doctor couldn't help but have his mind still fixed on the Riddles case. It became more difficult for him to forget that specific murder thanks to the fact at least twice a month he received a letter from East Yorkshire.

Frank's letters were usually three or four pages long, filled with complaints about the village and nice descriptions of the Yorkshire fields. Sometimes his handwriting became shaky and difficult to read, and Feliks always thought those passages were written by night, after the gardener had been awakened by some bad dream or during an annoying insomnia. Some pages came stained with coffee or tea, and others were creased. But, in the end, they were good letters and they always ended with the same question:

_'_ _Found something?'_

But Ravenwood had not found anything. He had tried looking for Morfin Gaunt in police archives but there was no trace of him. Every time he was outside, Feliks paid more attention to catch any glimpse of strange colours or shadows that might be similar to what he saw in Little Hangleton and, although he sometimes did see something, it was never the familiar frost-like pattern or it simply disappeared before he could go after it.

"Doctor?" The man raised his head to see a young man standing by his door. "I've already put them back in. I'm leaving."

"All right, I'll lock it up when I finish things here."

The young man waved and disappeared from his sight. The doctor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to feel the silence around him. That was one of the advantages of this job: it was quiet. When he was in the laboratory, working with tissue samples, the quietness was present too. Feliks liked it and he secretly felt bad for not missing the contact to patients he once had during medical school or when he had helped as a volunteer during the Blitz. The silence in the morgue or in the laboratory helped him to think and calmed him down.

After remaining with his eyes closed for a few minutes, enjoying the quietness, the doctor finally came back to his senses and started to gather his things to leave. He locked the place and, as soon as he stepped outside, took a deep breath and wondering how the Autumn air would feel in a place like Little Hangleton.

The man pushed his glasses up his nose and looked up at the sky, seeing its colour start to shift from grey to an odd orange. It was time for another of his expeditions to begin.

He left for a walk after a quick stop at his house, in order to leave his briefcase there (along with his watch and fountain pen), hiding part of his money inside his sock and switching his glasses for an older pair with a cracked lens. After the last three months, he had learned to take the precautions needed if one wanted to wander through London after nightfall.

Since he arrived from Little Hangleton and started to accept the fact that his synaesthesia might not really be… Just synaesthesia, the man had started to take walks around the city in order to try catching any glimpse of these sightings. Feliks did see some things, lights and colours and shadows where there should be nothing, and he did go after them, but never found anything but empty alleys and dead-ends. Well, he also found robbers three times along the last three months and the broken glasses, the missing wristwatch and the precautions resulted from these encounters, just like the bruise on his jaw that was still healing. The doctor knew he had more luck than sense, but he kept going on his walks.

That night, Ravenwood decided to strive away from Hammersmith and Fulham, taking the tube and wandering into Chelsea. When he had first arrived at London, the Chelsea College of Arts had been one of the places he liked to wander around when the life at the hospital became too much, and now the area was still one of his favourites to take a walk around, although it was rare for him to take a time off to do such thing. Also, he hoped that it would be more difficult for him to be mugged there.

It was almost nine o'clock when, after walking along the lines of pretty houses, gardens, pubs and even the Chelsea Arts Club, something caught his eye. Not an art gallery or a pub, things that would make him stop in his previous visits to the place, but a string of white light, delicate and faint, that trickled across a street and into one of Chelsea's gardens.

Bracing himself for any possible situation (including another mugging), Feliks crossed the street and looked around to see if he could see anything else, but seeing only a man walking along the sidewalk, head down and quick paced, most likely returning home after a workday.

The garden was dark, the light from the lamps not being enough to light most of the area and leaving most of the place hidden in shadows. The string of white light could be easily seen now, in a darker environment, and Ravenwood didn't think twice before walking along it as it crossed the garden and disappeared behind a tree. When the man circled the tree, he saw the string of light coming to a halt right at one of the knots in the trunk.

Furrowing his brows, Feliks ran his fingers over the light and saw it tremble for a moment, some of it staying on his skin. On the tree trunk, the line made a spiral against the wood knot, seeming to become stronger as it reached the insides of it.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he whispered to himself, remembering he could be at home, in his pyjamas and drinking a nice cup of tea before getting to bed, instead of standing in the middle of a dark garden, risking being robbed for the fourth time in three months.

The man raised his hand, hesitant, tracing from outside in the spiral formed by the white light and applying more pressure as he reached its centre. He pressed his index finger hard against the wood when he finished tracing the drawing and felt his eyes widen as the knot in tree began to uncurl in a way that made the doctor consider that, yes, he had been hallucinating all along.

When the trunk finished untwining itself, what remained was a hollow tree that looked more like an art nouveau doorway: its insides were lit by little candles held in place by holders made of the trunk's wood and, what was more interesting, a set of stairs were hidden in it, leading deep into the ground into what must have been a corridor.

Feliks took a deep breath and turned around.

* * *

Four days after Dr Ravenwood found the mysterious entrance on the tree at Redcliffe Square Gardens, Frank Bryce arrived at London with a bigger trunk than Feliks had expected and a grimace on his face. After sending a telegram as soon as he could, asking the man if he could come to the capital to have a look at his new discovery, the doctor didn't really think Frank would come so quickly, but there he was, limping across King's Cross station and not looking too impressed by the station's crowd.

After a long cab ride, during which Bryce remained in silence, just staring out of the window, sometimes looking impressed by the city and others, annoyed, they reached Feliks' house. The flat was not big, but the two bedrooms had finally come in hand with Frank's visit, who seemed to approve of it.

"I dinnae have to work today, so, if you want to take a look around," said Ravenwood, watching from the door as the other man opened his trunk and started to take his things out of it. The doctor couldn't help but notice that there was a lot of stuff in there for just a one-week visit.

"Why don't you tell me what you found, doc?" asked Bryce. He looked curious and maybe a little impatient. "Your telegram wasn't really explanatory."

"I didn't think it was very wise to talk about it in a telegram," said Feliks, laughing softly and leaning against the doorway. "A few nights ago I went for a walk and found something. Well, a place, actually."

"Go on," said the gardener, sitting on the bed and starting to unpack his clothes.

"I saw something. One of the… Ahm-"

"Your synaesthesia stuff."

"Aye, and it led me to a garden in Chelsea. You see, it went into the garden and reached a tree and… It made an interesting pattern on the trunk," he said, drawing a spiral on the air with his index finger. "I just traced over it and then…" Ravenwood stopped talking abruptly, just now noticing how crazy it was to say that a tree simply opened up before him. Bryce kept looking at him, expectantly and Feliks laughed. "The tree trunk opened."

"You found a door?" asked Frank, arching an eyebrow. "A fake tree with a door?"

"No, it was not a fake tree," said Feliks, approaching the other and gesticulating as if trying to explain something. "The trunk remodelled itself and somehow took the shape of a doorway. It looked really… Beautiful, as if it had been carved by hand into the wood by an artist like… Like Alphonse Mucha himself! I don't know how to explain, the trunk simply started to- it was as if the wood came to life and changed its shape." The doctor noticed he was smiling and wondered how dumb he looked right now, being so excited over such an impossible thing. "And the doorway opened up to a corridor, I think… There were steps going into a hole in the ground. There were candles lighting up the way and… I have no idea of how all of it got there."

The gardener stared at him in silence for a while and Ravenwood was sure he was about to ask him why he had made Frank waste his time coming over to London to hear such nonsense. But the man simply sighed and rubbed his face with his fingers, his shoulders slumping and looking tired for the first time since he arrived.

"Into what exactly are we getting into?" he asked, looking at the doctor again.

"I have no idea," said Feliks. "But it seems to be something interesting and curious-"

"And dangerous?"

"Well, it could be dangerous, but we don't really know yet," he said and then furrowed his brows. "Oh, _right_ , dangerous. We're trying to find the cause of a possible murder."

"I hope you keep that in mind, doc," said Frank, right before he leaned in and squinted his eyes as he watched the other. "What is that on your jaw?"

"What?"

"Here." Bryce pointed at his own jaw, halfway between its angle and his chin, on the left side of his face.

"Oh. That's nothing," said Ravenwood, raising a hand to cover the fading bruise left by some muggers.

"Were you punched in the face?"

"I… Aye, I was," he said, slumping his shoulders and burying his hands inside his pockets in order to not end up fidgeting. "But it was nothing. The bruise is already fading anyway and I didn't break any teeth."

"Why would someone punch _you?"_ asked Frank, as if the answer to this question would end up sounding ridiculous to him. "I mean, look at you."

"What's wrong about me?"

"That's exactly the point. You're… Extremely polite and… I don't know, but why would someone punch you?"

"I'm sure the man who did it was not thinking about my politeness when all he wanted was to steal my watch," said Feliks, laughing nervously. "But I learned my lesson after the third time. Not leave the house to go look for evidence with anything valuable on me."

"You were robbed three times since you came back?"

"As I said, I learned my lesson now."

"Where exactly have you been walking 'round?" asked Frank.

"All around London."

Frank Bryce stared at him for a little longer and then sighed, shaking his head.

"I really need to teach you how to throw a punch."

* * *

"How do you know the time of death of a corpse?" asked Frank as he lit a cigarette and leaned against the gym's wall, looking down at the man sitting on the floor next to him.

"You can't tell it for sure," said Ravenwood, raising his head to see the other. He imagined he must be looking crazy with his hair all messed up and sweat on his face. It had been quite some time since he did any kind of activity other than swimming. Aand punching a sandbag exhaustively was pretty different than swimming. "It's an estimative. We analyse the body's temperature, the state of decomposition, some signs that appear after death…"

"Signs?"

"You know, when the body stiffens we call it _rigor mortis_. It usually takes between six to twelve hours to the full rigor mortis to set in and it can last for… thirty-six to forty-eight hours, on the average climate. In a hot weather, it can be gone in less than twenty-four hours," Feliks explained, taking his glasses of for a moment and blinking as the world in front of him became blurred beyond recognition. " _Livor mortis_ is when the skin becomes reddish or purplish-blue because of the blood settling in the vessels… On the parts of the body that are pressed against hard surfaces, these vessels are compressed and the blood doesn't settle. It takes half an hour after death for the livor to start appearing and after some time, it gets fixed, so you can know if the body was moved by looking at where the livor is present."

"That's interesting," said Bryce. "And you work just with that? Dead people?"

"No, but it's what I enjoy the most," said Ravenwood, smiling as he looked up to the other. "I also work at the lab of Westminster Hospital. I analyse tissue samples after biopsies… You know, if you have a weird mass growing on some part of your body, they cut it off – or part of it – and send it to us so we can cut it to tiny pieces and put it under microscopes to analyse and identify it."

The gardener looked at him for a moment and then laughed, shaking his head.

"I thought doctors trained to heal people."

"There are a lot of different doctors out there," said Feliks, shrugging. "Some of them heal people, others prefer to be in the research field or become a teacher. I thought that… Well, the living have a lot of doctors to care for them, right? We listen to the sick and treat them, trying to heal them or minimize their pain. But not many people out there think about what the dead have to say."

"Oh, and do they say a lot?"

"You have no idea." The doctor felt his smile widen. He must look silly when he started to talk about his job. "They can't speak with words, of course, but they do have their own kind of language and you can learn a lot if you understand it. For example, I learned some interesting things about the Riddles after their autopsies," he said, just before realizing that might not be a good subject to touch. "I'm sorry. I'm talking about them again…"

"We're here because of them, aren't we?" asked Frank right before inhaling the smoke from the cigarette. "Go on. What did they tell you?"

"Mr Riddle had rheumatic fever when he was younger. One of his heart's valve was damaged, showing signs of a former inflammatory reaction that succeeds the rheumatic fever. If nothing had happened, he most likely would die of a heart failure in the future," said Feliks, looking at the blurred glasses he was holding. "Mrs Riddle couldn't be healthier and she used to write – or draw – a lot, because she had a callus on her middle finger… Actually, the three of them had writing calluses, but Tom's was on his ring finger. Well, Tom must have scrapped his knee pretty bad once, because he had a scar there. And he had some notion of what he was doing when he… attempted suicide, he must have had at least a basic knowledge of anatomy."

"That's impressive," said Frank. "He studied anatomy, you know? When he was studying here in London. Mr Tom told me he was studying to become an architect but he and his friend Mrs Campbell would sneak into an anatomy laboratory to study the corpses. He said it helped to learn how to draw."

"Just as drawing helps to learn anatomy," said Ravenwood, putting his glasses back on and looking at his hands, crinkling his nose as he looked at his bruised knuckles. "I didn't know Tom Riddle was an architect."

"He wasn't. He dropped out after Merope Gaunt. Became too scared to leave the house, let alone come back to London and start studying again." The man inhaled the smoke once again and them let it out slowly, before nudging the other with his cane. "Let's go. I think you've had enough for the day."

* * *

Almost a week had passed since Frank arrived and they were finally planning their expedition (as Feliks liked to call it) to redcliffe Square Gardens. If he was someone else looking at their situation from outside, the doctor would say he and Frank looked like two schoolboys, excited about a hike through the woods or a school outing, sitting on his flat's living room and talking about what they would do when they got there and what they had to expect.

After Bryce's lectures, Ravenwood could now throw a punch without breaking his hand and the gardener had thought that, for now, it was more than enough. He was curious to see what they would find on that passage on Chelsea and, to a degree, impatient. Feliks knew the other was still haunted by the murder of the Riddles and all of this, to Frank, felt like a step closer to finding out what had happened to his friends and, maybe, get his revenge.

The flat was not big and, since Frank arrived, it had seemed almost odd to have someone else in the house aside from Feliks himself. The gardener didn't say anything about not being comfortable, but it was clear that he missed the garden and the fields of Little Hangleton, after all, all they had on Moore Park Road was more houses and the paved street under the cloudy sky. The doctor had also noticed Bryce's occasional looks, over the past week, to the old upright piano that sat on the corner of his living room, but, even now as they sat and discussed their plans and Frank kept looking at the instrument, he had never mentioned it.

"I just hope we don't find the mob or something like that under that tree of yours," said Bryce. "I'm going to take my rifle."

"I can't believe you brought your rifle," muttered Feliks as he leafed through one of his notebooks into which he had spent the last months writing about his sightings in London.

"I brought everything I had." Frank shrugged, stretching his bad leg and flexing his foot. "I told you in the letter, I'm not going back to Little Hangleton."

The doctor stopped turning the pages of the notebook and raised his head to stare at the other. Yes, he had read the letter where Frank said he was going to quit the Riddle house, but for some reason it was difficult to believe… After all, he seemed to love that house and garden, even if he hated the village.

"But the garden…?" asked Ravenwood, feeling almost silly as he noticed he asked first about the garden instead of whether the other had any plans on how to survive in the capital or where he was going to stay now.

"As I said, that garden is nothing without Mrs Mary and she would understand… The Riddles could stand living there because they had one another, they built a safe place for themselves inside those fences and that's how they survived," he explained and Feliks couldn't help but feel bad for him. There it was, that steady tone of voice that he used when he talked about the family, as if he was too scared his voice might break into any emotion. "Mrs Mary used to say that she had agreed on living there because of the view; she fell in love with the view of the village. Sometimes I wonder if Mr Tom would have stayed there if he had felt better… I don't think he would have come to London or anywhere too big. He liked quiet places, the fields and the starry night. He liked the sea, too. I think he might have gone to live by the sea."

The doctor stared as Frank talked and massaged his own leg as if trying to make the discomfort go away. He wished he could have known the Riddles in life, to be able to know these people Bryce talked so fondly about, making them sound like a peculiar and curious family.

"I'll miss the countryside. God, I _already_ miss it." The man laughed. "But maybe I'll find somewhere else to go after we sort all of these things, away from London. And, don't worry, I don't plan on living on your guest room for too long."

"If this is of any comfort, I still miss Scotland," said Feliks, smiling. "And, dinnae worry, you can stay as long as you need to."

The doctor looked at his watch, seeing that he should have gone to sleep at least two hours ago if he wanted to be fully functional on the next day, and then looked at Frank again, seeing the other man's gaze wandering through the room once again (he seemed to be always analysing his things), until it fell on the piano again.

"It's tuneless. I always forget to tune it," said Ravenwood as the gardener turned his head to him again.

"You play it?"

"Yes, but it's been quite some time since I had time to actually sit down and practice," he explained. "I would play it for you, but if I do, the lady upstairs will start banging on the ceiling and I don't think that would be very nice at two in the morning."

Feliks smiled as he saw he had managed to make Frank laugh.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> 1) Livor and Rigor Mortis: are signs that appear post mortem on a body and that may help to presume the time of death, although no method is 100% precise when it comes to determining the time of death; as Feliks said, rigor is the stiffness of the body that starts to appear from 6 - 12 hours after death and can last for 36 - 48 hours, but it can vary depending on the weather and the condition of the body. Livor mortis is the settling of the blood on the lower portion of the body, which appears as a purplish/reddish discoloration of the skin; once it gets 'fixated', you can move the body and the discoloration won't change anymore, so you can know if the body has been moved or not by watching where the livor is on a body;


	5. The Black Siren

Radcliffe Square Gardens was dark and silent when they stepped in it on a Sunday night. It was October the 31st and even if the night had been clear, there would be no moon to light their path through the garden.

"Did we really have to do it on the witches' night?" asked Frank, when they finally entered the place.

"We should have come yesterday," said Feliks, tightening his coat around himself. "It was my fault we didn't make it, but now we have time."

"Of all the days of the year."

"My aunt used to say the night of the 31st is when the spirits are closer to us," the doctor said, looking around as he tried to identify the tree he had found a few days earlier. "If this is the night of the dead, we're safe. Dead people can't hurt us; we should fear the living."

Bryce let out a long-suffering sigh but didn't say anything. Ravenwood smiled when he finally spotted the tree, approaching it and waiting for the other man, feeling his heart beat faster as he stared at the trunk's knot. Today there was no light showing him the way, but he could remember everything he should do. When Frank stopped by his side and looked at the tree, it took a moment for the doctor to remember the other hadn't seen what he did, the light tracing the spiral over the wood… For him, this was an ordinary tree.

He looked at Bryce, feeling the corner of his mouth curl into a smile right before he faced the tree again, raising his hand and pressing his fingers to the wood. He moved his hand, feeling the rough texture of the wood against his skin as he drew an invisible spiral on it, from outside in, applying more pressure as he reached closer to its centre. When the spiralling movement ended, Feliks pressed his fingers harder on the trunk and then retreated his hand. His heart was mad in his chest, beating on a fast pace, and his throat felt as if it was closing with anticipation when he closed his eyes for a moment in a childish action of wishing for the tree to give its answer as it had before.

Ravenwood heard Frank's gasp and opened his eyes. The wood was twisting and uncurling and shaping up to resemble more and more a doorway. When the trunk went still once again and the passage – with its steps and little candleholders made of roots – appeared, the doctor turned to look at the other man. Bryce was staring at the tree with wide eyes and mouth hanging open, his knuckles turning white from using too much force to hold his cane.

"Maybe we should start believing in fairies and changelings, hum?" asked Feliks, smiling widely just before he approached the tree, but, before he could walk into he, Frank's hand was holding his elbow and pulling him back.

"Are you mad?" the man asked. "We have no idea of what's under there."

"That's exactly why we're going in," said Feliks, freeing his arm and letting a gentler smile appear on his face. "To find out. That's why I asked you to come: all of this is has way more meaning to you than to me, you should be here if we find out there really is something relevant to be known in there."

Frank looked at the tree for a moment and, then, to the tunnel in it. He looked nervous as he felt over his clothes for his pistol hanging on a holster on his belt (in the end, he didn't bring his rifle). Ravenwood felt ridiculously defenceless as he remembered the only weapon he had brought with him was a switchblade that rested in his pocket.

"Come on," the doctor said, stepping into the tree and nodding for the other to follow him. "This whole thing looks like the kind of story Tom Riddle would enjoy, doesn't it?" he asked, feeling slightly bad for bringing the dead man into it, but the effect was right there, in the way Frank looked at the doorway with more curious eyes. "Don't Dinnae fash. No fairy would be mad enough to mess with you, Lieutenant Bryce."

The man nodded and adjusted woollen newsboy cap on his head, right before he stepped in.

Ravenwood went down first, feeling the steps carefully and trying to pay as much attention as he could to everything around them. When they reached the landing, which was lighted by the same candles on the holders made by roots, a sound echoed behind them and, when they peered back to the stair, the trunk was closing itself once again. Feliks gulped but simply smiled when Frank turned to look at him with furrowed brows, and then started walking again.

The tunnel was large enough for at least four people walk side by side in it and its ceiling was high enough for Ravenwood to stand in it without having to lower his head. They were underground and everything around them was made of earth and stone and tree roots, illuminated by the candles that, as they had just noticed, appeared to be out at first and then, as they progressed along the tunnel, started to light up by themselves.

"Do you hear that?" whispered Bryce.

"What…? _Oh."_

Music. It was muffled and distant but there was, undoubtedly, music echoing in that underground tunnel. The two men stared at each other before looking to the darkness ahead and starting to walk again. The candles continued coming to life, revealing more of the length of the corridor and the music was getting progressively louder, until another set of candles lighted up and a door appeared.

"Good Lord," whispered Bryce, his hand sneaking under his coat to rest on his pistol. "I just want you to know that, if I die here tonight, it'll be a good thing it's All Hallows' Eve, because I sweat I'll come back to drag you with me, Dr. Ravenwood."

"What if I die too?"

"Then I'll stick by you for the rest of eternity to remind you of the terrible idea you had," the man groaned just as they stopped about two metres away from the door.

The double-door was ornate with stained glass picturing dark skinned women, one on each side of the door, with their long hair tangling on their fingers as they tried to brush them. They were sitting on rocks, with their feet dipped in the water and shells and seaweed ornamenting their hair. The deeply intricate frame around them was all round shapes and flowers and seashells.

"Should we knock?" asked Feliks, eyes still on the stained glass.

"Oh, don't bother, darling."

The two men jumped back when the woman on the right opened her mouth and spoke. The woman in the stained glass blinked slowly and her sister chuckled, running her fingers through her hair and picking a seashell from her curls as she looked at them.

"Put it down and enter, love," said the one on the left, winking at Frank, who had taken his pistol from its holster and was pointing at the glass.

"There's no need to be so scared," said the Right-Lady, tossing her hair back.

"They're _men_ ," said the other. "They get scared by everything."

"Don't be mean," the one on the right whispered.

"Well, are you gonna stand there all night?" the Left-Lady asked, arching a brow.

"No…" muttered Ravenwood, who looked at Bryce and gestured for him to put the gun away.

"That's _fucking_ madness," Frank whispered, putting the pistol back in its holster.

"Don't be rude," the woman on the left said. "I bet you gonna enjoy it here. I wanna see that grumpy face of yours lit up with a smile when you come out, boy."

If they thought the speaking stained glass was odd, all they could do was to stand by the doorway with their mouths open and eyes widened when they finally opened the door and peered inside.

It was a saloon with walls decorated with murals depicting scenes of a seaside landscape with beautiful women and men coming out of the water, others perched on the top of rocks, some of them waving and others brushing their hair. Here and there sailors were swimming, trying to reach the ladies and the handsome men with silly smiles plastered on their faces. There were places where the seaside scene was interrupted by a framed picture of women or men, all of them with beautiful features and smiles on their faces, their hair entangled with flowers and seashells. The pictures on the walls, too, were moving… Not all the time, but if one paid attention, they would see the delicate hands moving as they waved to the sailors or the water splashing against the rocks.

As if the walls were not impressive enough, the rest of the room looked completely out of place in the middle of a mid-war London… The wooden tables were round with their feet shaped into curving, organic forms, different from the practical, full of straight lines, furniture on most places around the city. There was a counter where a woman was serving drinks to a crowd of people, the back of the bar was decorated with mosaics and the stools where the clients were sitting were made of wood and blue velvet. On the end of the saloon, there was what looked like a stage, with its blue curtains closed.

"This… Is madness," whispered Frank, his voice so low it was almost impossible to hear it.

And now Feliks had to fully agree with him. The place was incredible and beautiful and rich, but, after taking in the room and its decoration, Ravenwood began to notice the people who were in it and that was even more confusing than a rich saloon with moving pictures buried beneath London.

On a table near the entrance there were two men and two women sitting, all of them wearing colourful clothes that seemed to belong to another decade… One woman had a small pointed purple hat on head while the other wore a long gown with a black cloak strapped to its shoulders. The two men wore different shades of shiny green, one with a long coat with intricate embroidery and the other a simpler outfit: pants, shirt and a vest that, too, was full of embroidery… One of them had long hair styled in a braid and the other had a pointed beard. Feliks heard Bryce gasp again as one of the man leaned in, laughing, and kissed the other on the lips.

"Where the hell are we?" he heard Frank ask again. "What the hell is _that!?"_

The doctor looked across the room to where Bryce was looking, seeing another table full of men and women. Well, they looked _kinda_ like men and women but… Shorter and slenderer, with small black eyes and large pointed ears. Their hands, he could see as they poured each other drinks, had long fingers with pointed nails. All of them were richly dressed, with shiny jewellery hanging from their ears, necks and hairs; some of the men (or male creatures?) dismissed the earrings and gold chains, but wore rings adorned with big stones, shiny buttons and golden cufflinks. When they smiled, Ravenwood noticed with a shiver, pointy teeth were flashed from behind their lips.

On another table there was a man with extremely pale skin and bloodshot eyes, looking a bit nauseous as he stared at the food on the table, as his companion, two women with scars crossing their faces and more ragged clothes, tried to convince him to eat a little red cake. There were more men and women that looked less like creatures and more like human beings, but all of them wearing weird clothes and small creatures with big eyes and big ears, running here and there, carrying trays.

"Oh, hello, boys!" the woman behind the counter called out for them when the groups she was serving finally left for their table, waving her hand as if to ask them to come closer.

Feliks nudged Bryce, who was still looking around with widened eyes, and walked over to the counter. Wherever they were, they'd need some explanation.

"Hello…" said Ravenwood with a shy smile on his face.

"I've never seen you around," said the woman, smiling brightly and resting her hands on the counter. "Welcome to the Black Siren! I'm Jane Fletcher, the current owner and your host." She winked and pulled two glasses from under the counter. "Now, what can I pour you?"

"Ahm… Actually, we're here to-"

"Whiskey, please," asked Frank, taking a sit on one of the stools and looking at the doctor before whispering:. "I need to drink something, doc, don't judge me."

"All right, a firewhiskey for you, Mr…?"

"Frank Bryce," he said, taking the cap off and rubbing his face with his hand. "What exactly is this place?"

"What does it look like, Mr. Bryce? A pub, but way more interesting and funnier than The Leaky Cauldron," said Jane, pulling a wooden stick from her pocket and waving it.

Feliks widened his eyes as he saw the faint orange light shining from the woman's hand and, then, escaping from the tip of the stick. It danced in the air for a moment until it reached for a bottle behind her, lifting it up and making it float to her hand.

"What's that!?" asked Ravenwood, turning to look at Bryce, who looked surprised too. "Did you see it too?"

"The flying bottle?" the man asked, his face with a shocked expression on it too.

"No, the… Oh, aye, the flying bottle too, but the orange light?"

"What are the two of you talking about?" asked Jane, arching a brow as she stared of them. "Oh! Are you… _Muggles?"_

"Muggles?" asked Frank.

"Oh, you are!" She laughed and winked again. "You're lucky! The Black Siren is one of the few magical establishments that accepts Muggles… Well, we allow you to enter and enjoy the night with us and then we deal with your memory. Don't worry, the fun will stay."

"Magical establishments?" asked Feliks. "Deal with our memory?"

"Yes, dear… I can see you ended up here by accident. You see, we shouldn't tell anyone about it, but, come on, if wizards pretend we don't exist, it harms no one to explain our environment, right?" she said. "Witches, wizards and magical creatures, that's what we're here."

"Witches…?"

"Yes, Mr Bryce." Jane waved her stick in the air, a trail of orange light following its tip. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, love."

"What's that?" the doctor asked, pointing at the stick.

"It's a wand." She put it back in her pocket and poured the drink to Frank. "Enjoy."

"Good Lord," whispered Bryce as he took a sip from the glass but quickly pulled away, his face red and his eyes watering as he swallowed it down. "What the hell…?"

"What did you mean my dealing with our memory?" asked Feliks, sitting on a stool next to the other and resting his elbows on the counter. "You mean… Make us forget what happened?"

"You're a clever one, Mr. No Name," said Jane. "We have to follow the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, you see."

"International Statute…?" Ravenwood blinked and then shook his head. "No, no, _you can't_. I mean, you can't erase our memories. We need to remember this place and… Look, we won't tell anyone; we have no interest in selling a good story or being called crazy and being locked up in a sanatorium, trust me."

"Do you have any magical relatives?" asked Jane.

"No."

"Then I can't let you go without a memory charm."

"You don't understand-"

"A friend of mine was married to a witch," said Frank, finally blinking the tears away and keeping his voice steady as he looked at the woman. "Or, better saying, he was forced to marry a witch."

"And how's that?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I don't know. All I know is that a young man left his house to run away with a stranger and came back saying he had been bewitched, scared of everything, talking about witches and magic and hiding in his house because he was afraid that one of you would go after him," said Bryce, taking another sip from the glass and, now, managing to stand the drink. "You said you can erase our memory. My friend didn't have all of the memories from the one year he vanished, but he remembered the witch and the things he remembered were not nice. Is it common for your people to leave memories to traumatize… How did you call us? Muggles."

"What? No," said Jane Fletcher, furrowing her brows. "If any incident happens, the Ministry takes action to make the Muggle forget anything that might have hurt them-"

"I think your… Ministry was relapse, then," said Bryce, shrugging. It was clear that the woman was now a bit uncomfortable with the story he had told her. "Look, lass, I'm not saying that your lot is bad or anything like that… I'm just saying that I think you can let us pass without changing our memories. Your Ministry didn't erase my friend's suffering by doing it and I'm here just for him, so…"

"You're here for him?" she asked. "Look, I didn't see any Muggle around here in the past six months, hon-"

"What? No, no!" Frank laughed. "He didn't come here and, unfortunately, he will never come. You see, he's dead. He's been murdered three months ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry-" Feliks felt sorry for the girl, who now looked really uncomfortable.

"And we're looking for whoever killed him. You see, the good doctor here." The man tapped Feliks' shoulder. "Found something that led us here and now… We just want to know if anyone here can help us finding the person who killed my friend. We were thinking about taking him to the police, but… You said something about a Ministry? Do your people have a police force?"

"Well, we… We have the aurors," said Jane. "They work for the Ministry."

"I trust you have a prison?"

"Oh, yes, Azkaban."

"So, let's make a deal, shall we?" Bryce smiled and the doctor couldn't help but wonder when did Frank drop the grumpy gardener façade to become the handsome young man trying to win the barmaid with a dashing smile. Jane stared at the man for a moment, before taking a deep breath and nodding. "You let us go without messing with our head. We try to find something that may lead us to find our murderer and… If it turns out it has nothing to do with witches and wizards, we just keep this place as a funny memory in our heads. If we find out the person we're looking for is one of you, we go after them and take them to your authorities and you witches can feel safe because one less violent bloke walking around."

Ravenwood was sure she was not going to agree with it, after all, it made no sense for her to think this was good business. She, most likely, would pull her wand and throw them out with magic.

"I can't believe I'm risking my wand for a couple of handsome Muggles," said Jane, sighing. "But it's not as if the Black Siren is completely legal… Nor are the activities that go on in here."

"Then we have a deal?" asked Frank, smiling and offering his hand.

"We do, Mr. Bryce," she said, stretching her hand to shake his but retreating at the last minute. "But under one condition! Your friend must tell us his name."

"Oh." Feliks felt the other man's elbow hitting him on his side. "Feliks, Feliks Ravenwood."

"Such a pretty name." Jane smiled and took Frank's hand.

"Thank you, doll," the gardener said, holding her hand into his and kissing the back of it. "Now… Is there someone in here that might know anything about a murder?"

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welcome to the Black Siren, the place I wish that was real. When the first Fantastic Beasts trailer came out and I saw a brief scene of what looked like a wizarding speakeasy, I was crazy over it. A speakeasy? A magical speakeasy?! I wish th Blind Pig scene was longer and showed more of its guests, but luckily the chapters with the Black Siren had already been written by then and most of my need for a magical underground pub had already been fulfilled... what remained of it... well, there'll be more chapters with this lovely place as the background.
> 
> I wanted to thanks TheBoredomEnsues, Winter Frosts, quillstrikes and the ever present Highonbooks (that's it, our beautiful magical pub is finally being known by others) for the reviews. I hope you guys liked this chapter and let me know what you're thinking until now (:


	6. Mr. Coppersnout's Gambling Table

**Mr. Coppersnout's Gambling Table**

**.**

**.**

The owner of the magic pub ( _god fucking help him a magic pub poor young Tom was right all along and_ _ **they did nothing**_ ) gave him a small grimace and pointed at a door in the back of the bar, slightly hidden by the bottles and the glassware.

"That would be old Copper's table, hon. Though I don't advise if you have nothing to gamble away. That goblin is a ruthless dealer."

Frank gave her another charming smile. He could feel Feliks irradiating a nervous energy that had nothing to do with the magic and everything to do with his suddenly pleasant disposition.

"Don't fret, doll. Back in the Army, nobody could win from Lieutenant Bryce. What's this Copper's game?" He said, already rising with his glass of whisky ( _whisky made of fire what a fucking marvel_ ) and ignoring the doctor's sounds of distress.

Miss Fletcher smiled a little sharply.

"Poker's the game, Texas Hold'em to be more specific."

"And how much to get in?"

The smile got even sharper.

"Whatever you have of value, darling. The goblins are not as fuzzy as one would think."

* * *

 

"What the hell was that? Do you suffer from some kind of personality disorder? I've never seen you so charming!" Feliks exclaimed, as they walked in a long hallway, towards the poker table.

"First of all, I ain't crazy. That's just me being charming. The lass was being friendly and I was friendly too. If you have problems to talk to pretty dames, that's on you, doc." Frank was grinning, while the cane made a distinct sound on the wooden floor. He felt like a new man. Like he was before the war.

"Oh Oh, I see, Lieutenant Bryce. Poor ol'me almost got shot trying to talk to you. If only I had knew it was easy to get on your good side, I'd have batted my lashes!"

Frank snorted.

"Only you to make me smile in a time like this, doc, only you."

The poker table was at the same time exactly how he imagined and not at all like he expected. There was a felt table in green and mahogany with ten chairs around it. In one of them there was a strange creature, with black eyes and a short stature, who was dealing the cards. Only seven of the chairs had someone in it, three women and four men. At least, they seemed men and women, but the light was low and most people in the room had their faces covered, except the goblin and the two muggles.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" The goblin asked.

"I want in on the game," said Frank, promptly.

Feliks went stiff by his side.

"What the fuck are you doing, you crazy ol'vet, we have no money" The doctor sing-songed near his ear, a shrill tone in his voice.

"Fucking grow up, like your life ain't shit. I'm being proactive. Mister Creepy over there doesn't sound very charitable. I need to win the info."

Feliks sighed but nodded and Frank once again gave his attention to the amused goblin.

"Like I said, I want in."

"That would be two hundred galleons for the pot, friend."

"Or?"

Copper raised a bushy eyebrow but smiled all the same.

"I see you are not new to the tables. Well, usually I accept any kind of thing of value. Ingredients, animals, secrets, jewelry. More often than not, that's all we gamble here, instead of money."

Frank pulled his pistol and slowly approached the table. Feliks made a noise like he wanted to be swallowed by the ground, but Bryce ignored him.

"This is a pistol. It has six round cylinders and it's loaded. Smith & Wesson Model 10."

The goblin looked at the pistol but did not looked impressed.

"Nice trinket, sir, but what is it's use?"

Instead of answering, Frank shot at one of the, presumed, witch's glass of cider.

The reactions were immediate: the woman screamed and after the sound of the glass exploding, seven pieces of wood were pointed at him and the goblin's eyes were the size of a dinner plate.

"You can use for a lot of stuff, but mostly to kill people, as Dr Ravenwood here can so kindly confirm," the man explained. "Now it has five shots left. Would it be enough for me to buy myself in?"

Frank could smell the interest in the air now, after the scare. At least the magical folk were interested. The witch whose glass had been shot snapped her fingers and one of the big-eared creatures from before appeared with a fresh glass.

The goblin snorted but waved him in.

"Take a seat, lad. I am Coppersnout and this is the room where it happens. Put your deadly trinket in the table, and let us start."

* * *

 

The game started very calm, despite the bizarre bets. One of the women had written something on a little piece of paper ( _with a motherfucking quill and feather like holy shit these people were weird_ ) and put on the table to raise the pot. Nobody questioned. Frank imagined that was what the goblin spoke about when he said people gambled secrets in there. On his turn, he put his old pocket watch in there, and the round went on.

Sometimes Coppersnout's eyes would shift to one of the players or another, and Frank realized he was watching for cheaters. The problem in a gambling magic table was that people could do what they pleased to theirs or the other players' cards.

But nobody bothered to bluff.

Frank swallowed a smile. That was going to be good.

* * *

 

After three rounds, there were only the witches and Frank on the table, who had won back his watch and the pistol, with some seven other little papers, lots of gold and a little necklace with a blue gem pendant on it.

After the other men left, Feliks joined him on the table, sitting just far enough to show the other players he was not on it.

"Having fun?" asked the doctor in a whispered voice, his eyes darting from the hands of one player to the other. Frank asked himself if the man could see something with his weird synesthesia.

"More than I should, mate," he said, smiling a little to his friend. "Also, check." He addressed the goblin, who turned to the woman on his left.

She was dark skinned and tall, with a gold nose ring on her right nostril. Like the other witches, she had a shawl over her face, but her tell, the thing she did whenever she lied, was on her uncovered hands.

Like now, she was rhythmically drumming the table, a constant one-two-three. She was going to make a risky move then.

"All in," she said, pushing every single bet in front of her on the table. The air shifted, a current of electricity waking everyone up.

The other two witches, one a pretty Asian with a black eye and a green one, and the other one an Aarab like himself, with a _niqab_ , looked nervous. They didn't think they could pull this off.

Frank looked at his hand and at the table. Without the river, he had a straight flush. He could be almost a hundred percent sure the other three had nothing of the sort.

Risking, the other women went all in as well.

Frank didn't hesitate.

Feliks was twisting his hands by his side, looking nervous. Even he would know what an all-in was.

Copper was giving everyone a very amused look, like he could not wait to cackle at them.

He turned the river.

A ten.

Frank had a royal flush.

* * *

 

"I gotta say, lad, that must have been one of the tensest games I've ever hosted. You sure you have no Irish blood in you like our dear Jane?" asked Coppersnout.

"No, Mister. My mom was from the colonies. Palestine, you see?" Frank said, helping Feliks collect their share of the winnings. A part of it went to the table, as a house rule, but he wasn't bothered.

What he wanted was information, and he had a well right in front of him.

* * *

 

Feliks wanted to sit down with their share of the prize and analyze each of their weird winnings with care. Not only because it was the first time he ever saw so many golden coins gathered together or because it was interesting to look into the little pieces of papers ( _"The Minister for Magic is sleeping with the wife of the Secretary of the Secrecy Department. Rumour has it she's about to leave Mr Secretary"),_ but because every single item had at least a bit of light or colour hanging to it.

But they had more to achieve there. The doctor watched as Frank talked to the goblin, waiting to see if the man would touch the subject of the Riddles. Coppersnout looked amused, like he was enjoying talking to that man (how did they call them? _Muggles_ ) who had won over a bunch of magical folk. The thought of it made Feliks realize how surreal their situation was: gambling with goblins and witches in an underground pub filled with magic.

When Bryce turned to look at him, the doctor nodded and then looked at the goblin again. He could only hope that Coppersnout would be of any use, especially after the game and the long moments with his heart trying to climb out of his throat as he watched the other man play.

"We've heard you are good with secrets," said Frank and the doctor braced himself, waiting to see how the conversation would unroll. "And we saw it today." The gardener waved a piece of paper they had won.

"We wanted to know if… You could help us with info," said Ravenwood, watching the creature raise an eyebrow while his black eyes shone with what seemed to be curiosity.

"Info about what, exactly?" asked the goblin, tapping his long nails to the table and making his shiny rings sparkle with the movements.

"A murder," said Frank, as if they were about to discuss the weather outside or any other trivial subject. The man looked over to Feliks and the doctor sighed.

"Three months ago, on July the 13th, a… Muggle? Aye, a Muggle family was found dead on a village in East Yorkshire, Little Hangleton," Ravenwood explained while he pocketed the remaining golden coins. "We believe their deaths had something to do with the magical… community, because of the way they died, the state of the bodies, you know? It didn't look like a common murder and nor did it look like a natural death."

"We want to know if you have anything you could tell us about it," Bryce clarified.

The goblin gave them a very long look.

"I might know something, but I feel I should warn the two of you about meddling with the affairs of wixes. The people here on the Black Siren are friendly because they are all outsiders. They can't afford to drive patrons away. Outside, things are different."

Feliks and Frank exchanged a glance.

"How different?" Frank demanded, feeling tense.

The goblin sighed but answered anyway:

"This is a pub for the queer, lad. The fairies, the butches, if you see a wix around here you can be quite sure they are inverts, in some measure. So are most of the creatures who come here. Others are artists, bohemians. Some are simply in a relationship with a being deemed a creature by the Ministry. Nobody here's a murderer and we don't get this kind of clientele around. If you are looking into a killer, it might be wise for you to watch your step. If this person really killed some Muggles for no reason, they will not hesitate to kill you too."

"Despite what you might think, we figured that out by ourselves, thanks. What we want to know is if you have something on this." Frank shot back, clearly agitated. Feliks could feel him tense up by his side.

"This was barely on the newspaper," the goblin said, leaning back on his chair and waving a hand to make a cigar appear between his finger: "A wizard by the name of Morfin Gaunt was arrested by the murder of some Muggles on this date. But I had someone from the Ministry on my table by that time and they said, and I quote _, 'the old fucker could barely walk, much less kill three Muggles without waking anyone up. He got locked up to shut up old Dumbles, to show anyone who's looking that we are doing our job._ ' If you want to see the whole of the so-called investigation, it must be on the Ministry." Coppersnout said, looking very old all of the sudden.

Frank nodded his head, jaw clenched, and left the room in a hurry. Feliks looked back at the goblin, but he just waved his hand, in a clear dismissal, and the young doctor followed the gardener outside, ignoring the curious patrons in the pub all staring at them.

* * *

 

Frank, despite his leg, could be very fast when he wanted, and by God did he want. Feliks found him a few meters away from the entrance, sitting on the ground and crying, the angry kind of tears. His face was blotched red and he kept punching the ground and his chest, while heaving sobs left his mouth.

"Frank, I-" the doctor started speaking, after letting the man let out his anger for a moment.

"I don't care! Did you hear that? Not even these _witches_ cared! Nobody but us, a pair of weirdos, bothered to look into their murders! They locked up some magical bum the same way the police almost put me in chains! No one cares!"

"I care, Frank. And so do you. Please, just… take a deep breath."

"I don't want to breathe, I want to die too! I'm sick of this. I'm tired. They are gone and I am alone in the world. Again." The man was still crying, but the anger had burned away, leaving him exhausted.

"I'm here. You are not alone, not yet."

Frank snorted, but looked a little less sad.

"Even after I almost shot you for being a magic synaesthete and prying in my garden?" the man asked with a squeaky voice.

Feliks gave him a grin and crouched to grab the walking stick the other man had abandoned on the floor.

"Even after that." The doctor laughed. "If you are up too, we could drink your hard earned money away in the bar."

Frank smiled a watery smile.

"I'm always up for a drink, mate."

Ravenwood smiled widely, stretching out his hand to pull the other from the floor. Bryce sniffled, wiping his face with the sleeve of his coat and then slapped the doctor's shoulder playfully and started to walk back to the end of the tunnel. He sighed as he followed the other. Feliks knew the man had been affected by the death of the Riddles, it was seen on the way he talked about them and on his determination to keep going with this crazy mission of theirs, but one thing was to see implicit signs of how Frank's emotional state was, another was to actually see the man allowing himself to show these emotions.

"I thought you wouldn't come back!" said the melodic voice of one of the sirens on the stained glass, the one on the right.

"We thought you two had a fight," said the one on the left, throwing a piece of seaweed on her sister.

"We didn't have a fight," said Frank.

"He was not feeling very well because of the firewhiskey," Feliks explained and was met with a giggle from the sirens as he opened the doors again.

For a moment, the clients of the Black Siren turned their heads to look at them again, their eyes filled with curiosity, and then they went back to their activities (some were drinking, others were drawing or painting and another group was too busy snogging). Jane Fletcher, by the counter, kept watching them and Feliks didn't know if she was curious about what had happened or was afraid they might cause some kind of furore in her pub.

"For a moment I thought you had lost and was trying to run from Copper," said Jane, when they approached her again. "Then one of the ladies who were playing said that you took all of her gold."

"Did she now?" asked Bryce, sniffling. "Could I have another glass of that whiskey of fire of yours, love?"

"Of course." The woman smiled, waving her wand and making the glass and bottle come floating again.

Ravenwood watched the orange light working on the objects again. Frank had called him a magic synaesthete just a few moments ago and now it was looming on his head… Was it possible that what he saw was magic? Back in Copper's table, he had seen different colours playing on the wixes fingers, sometimes glowing stronger just to fade again, as if they had been fuelling something and then gave up on using it. The goblin's hands had emanated a different kind of energy… It looked like silvery scrapings that jumped from his fingers every time he tapped them on the table. The objects they'd won were also colourful with it.

Taking a deep breath and distracting himself from the chat going on between Frank and Miss Fletcher, the doctor turned around and paid attention to the room in which they were standing, to the people and the furniture and the painted walls. Slowly, the colours began to appear.

The group of goblins on one table (because now he knew they were goblins) had all magic similar to Copper's: metallic and heavy-looking. The ill-looking man sitting with the two girls had his fingertips glowing red as he traced the rim of his wine cup. The witch with the purple hat was now waving her wand playfully, leaving a trail of pink light behind it, and the two men sitting with her had their fingers tangled together with stains of green and yellow mingling on their skin. It was beautiful and, to a certain point, baffling.

"Mr. Ravenwood?" he heard someone calling in a distance, but his eyes were too fascinated by the magic right now.

"Feliks!" Frank's voice, stronger and louder, made him blink and look away. "What the hell?"

The doctor stared him and Miss Fletcher, blinking slowly.

"Is magic visible to you?" he asked the witch, who furrowed her brow.

"You mean the spells? Well, the ones who have colours, yes," the woman explained, while she walked around the counter, leading them across the saloon until they reached a round table where she motioned for them to sit. Next to them, there was another table occupied by witches and a wizard, some of whom seemed interested in them. "Some spells have a quite distinctive look; you know? Like, Expelliarmus, the disarming spell, is bright red. Lumus is a pale light. Some people say that the Killing Curse is a beautiful shade of green… Isn't that right, Alfie?"

"Yeah, at least that's what my granpa says," said the wizard on the table next to theirs. He wore a bright blue vest and, hanging on his chair, was a cloak of a darker blue. "He once faced a Dark Wizard, you see. He man tried to hit him with the Killing Curse-"

"Your grandma said the man had tried to kill him because he caught him with his wife," said one of the witches.

"But it was a Dark Wizard. The motive of the attack is irrelevant," Alfie scoffed. "He says it's a flash of emerald light. Beautiful, but deadly."

"The Killing Curse?" asked Frank, frowning. Feliks inhaled deeply… He had managed to make the man smile a little and now the Riddles' murder was at their doorstep again. Too soon.

"One of the three Unforgivable Curses," the witch said. Jane looked pleased when she saw the two Muggles were now in good hands and left for the counter once again. "The Killing Curse is the worst, of course, but there's also the Cruciatus, the torture curse, the Imperius, the controlling curse."

"And… How does it kill someone?" asked Ravenwood, already fearing the answer.

"Good question," said Alfie. "Do you know, Lilah?"

"No one knows," said the witch who had been quiet until now. "The victim just drops dead. They don't even know they died if they don't see the curse coming at them."

The doctor felt a shiver run down his spine just as he felt Bryce tense by his side. He remembered the autopsies of the three Riddles and how perfect the bodies were, how they seemed like healthy people who could live at least more twenty or even thirty years, in Tom Riddle's case. He remembered the reports and the non-sense story the police was spreading, about how they died of a scare… The corpses did not look scared, not even in the photographs taken in the house. They looked dead and lost and hopeless.

And Feliks couldn't help but be sure that Tom Riddle knew the curse was coming. He knew magic while everyone around him thought he had been making things up. He knew what a wand was and he most likely knew what to expect when he saw the green light.

"Do they feel something?" asked Frank, in a dry voice. "The… Victims."

"I've never talked to a ghost of someone who was killed by an Avada," said Lilah. "But I don't think so. I've even heard about places where terminally ill wizards allow others to hit them with the curse… It must be a quick, merciful death, if you take out the context of Dark Magic that revolves around the curse."

Ravenwood looked at the gardener, feeling a bit relieved when he saw Frank's shoulders light up a little. It was, after all, a good thing to know the family died quickly and without pain… Well, at least to him, whose job included seeing the most diverse group of homicides and accidents that ended up in death.

"I'm Alfie, by the way," said the wizard, smiling, and then pointed to the women. "And this is Lilah and Flora."

"I'm Frank." The gardener pointed at the other. "And this is Dr. Feliks."

"The man who won at Copper's," said Flora, who wore an outfit similar to Alfie's but with mismatching colours, arching an eyebrow. "You already have a fame in here, sir."

"Jane was talking about spell's colour when she brought us here." Lilah, whose hair was braided in many tiny braids that were styled around her head, leaned in. "I have to ask, do you plan on painting them? I thought about doing it once, but then it turned out people prefer to have paintings of centaurs with flower crowns on their living room instead of a disarming smell. They think it's too _abstract!"_

"What? No." Ravenwood laughed, shaking his head. "I asked her about magic, whether witches and wizards can see it."

"It depends on the spell." Flora grinned, taking her wand from her pocket and waving it quickly. Alfie's glass floated away from his hand right before he took a sip from his drink. "Invisible spell."

But it was not invisible. Not to Feliks. To his eyes, the glass was floating above them with a small cloud of blue holding it there.

"You can see it?" whispered Frank, looking at the glass as it was lowered to the wizard' hand again.

"Aye, it's blue and looks like a cloud," he explained and then gave an awkward smile in the direction of the group. "I guess I can see it anyway."

"Oh!" Alfie smiled. "I've heard about it! Some wizards and witches can feel magic in way more specific ways. My granpa could smell it," he said and Flora sighed. "Now, it's the first time I see someone who can _see_ magic. That must be an interesting thing to paint… Do you paint?"

"I… I actually do, but it's not a big thing-"

_"_ _You_ _do?_ " asked Frank, arching a brow.

"Aye, I do," muttered Feliks, feeling his cheek grow hot. The painting, just like the piano playing, was not something he was used to have people knowing about. "As I said, it's just a silly hobby."

"I think it would be interesting for you to try and paint what you see of magic." Alfie beamed and then frowned when he looked over to his friends, whose heads were turned towards the entrance of the Black Siren. "Oh, _stop it_ , for Merlin's sake."

Lilah and Flora looked gobsmacked, with silly smiles on their lips and their eyes looking dreamy. Feliks cocked his head as he stared at the women and then was surprised to see that Bryce, by his side, had the same expression on his face. Dreamy eyes and light smile, his cheeks flushed as if he had taken too much of the whiskey in just one sip.

"What's going on?" the doctor asked, turning to look at the other side of the saloon and widening his eyes.

Half of the clients had turned their heads to stare at the newcomer, a beautiful woman with long, pale blond hair that seemed to float as she walked. She smiled at Jane, who waved at her, and then reached the table where the sickly man and the two women in hand-me-down clothes were sitting. The unknown woman smiled even more as she leaned down to hug one of the witches, planting a light kiss on the top of her head and making her blush and giggle.

She looked really beautiful, the newcomer lady. The kind of beautiful that made Feliks want to look at her the whole day, just staring and trying to understand how her features worked on her face to make it look so nice… He wondered if she could hold a nice chat, because it seemed that a chat with her would be really interesting.

"Hold on, winner boy." Ravenwood heard Alfie's voice and blinked. The woman still looked beautiful, but his head felt clearer. When he turned, the wizard was holding Bryce by the arm and forcing him to stay put. "Oh, Merlin…" He waved his wand and a splash of water hit the gardener in the face, startling him. "Don't even think about it. She roots for the Harpies."

"What?" asked Frank, looking confused.

"Ludmilla is more interested in the ladies," the wizard explained, poking his friends and making them pay attention to their conversation again. "I don't blame you for looking like a fool in front of her. Most people do, after all, she's a veela."

"A what?"

"A veela, Frank. The Ministry classifies them as magical creatures. Beautiful boys and girls that can seduce the hell out of you. It's how they used to hunt, back in the days they still lived in the forests… Like mermaids luring men into the sea." Alfie laughed, taking a sip from his glass and then nodding towards Feliks. "Thank the gods her brother didn't come today. Maybe Boris could catch your attention a bit more, doctor."

Ravenwood let an awkward laugh escape from his lips and turned his head to look around. He spotted a female goblin climbing onto the stage and snapping her fingers, making a loud cracking noise echo around the saloon and drawing the attention of everyone.

"And now," said the goblin, waving her pointing fingers and making the curtain behind herself open (Feliks could tell it was a spell that did it, thanks to the little silver speckles that emanated from her hands). "We're pleased to announce that the night is about to get more interesting! Please, receive with a round of applause our Singing Sorceress: Celestina Warbeck!"

The goblin ran down the stage just as the music began to play. It was cheerful and jazzy and it marked the entrance of a dark-skinned witch on the stage. She walked to the centre of the light, dancing to the rhythm of the music, her green dress shimmering under the reflectors, and just then started to sing.

_I've got a cauldron full of hot, strong love_

_And it's bubbling for you!_

_Say Incendio, but that spell's not hot_

_As my special witch's brew!_

_Don't you be afraid, come and take a sip_

_Of this steamy, tasty treat!_

_What's in my cauldron full of hot, strong love_

_Will make your life complete!_

"Now, that's way better than the drunkards that thought they could sing at The Hanged Man," said Frank, who was watching the singer with a smile plastered on his face.

"I bet it is," said Feliks.

Some of the clients started to leave their tables to dance in the middle of the saloon, all of them looking pleased by the song as they spun and jumped and laughed with their partners. Jane Fletcher, behind the counter, was also shaking her body to the rhythm of the song while serving another wizard… Even Frank, sitting next to him, was tapping his foot along with the music. The doctor just smiled and relaxed in his chair, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the music only, but it didn't take long for him to open them again. He was curious, he wanted to see how the magic of all these people interacted with one another in a frenzied moment like that: it was colourful and a mess.

When the singer finished the first song, she soon started another and another and another, until most magical folk were tired from so much dancing and drinking. They were now lounging on their chairs, some of them with their hairdos undone, others with their shoes off, trying to have a chat or simply resting their heads on the table to take a nap.

"The lass is good," said Frank, putting his hand inside his jacket's pocket and pulling out his folded cap from it. "And she's cute as a bug's ear, ain't she?" The gardener laughed and straightened the cap, dropping into it two golden coins they had earned earlier. Feliks wondered how much of Bryce's good humour was genuine and how much of it was created by the alcohol. "Pass it on, doc. For the lass!"

* * *

 

The last time Dr Ravenwood had checked his watch, it had been three in the morning and there was no sign of Frank Bryce yet.

After Celestina's show, the doctor decided to wait outside. His head was already spinning from staying so long in a closed space and, as much as he didn't like to admit it, the sight of so many people (women or man or creature) making out or being so close was starting to make him feel a little uncomfortable, it had always been like that. When he asked Frank if he was ready to leave (after all, they had been in the Black Siren for about three hours then), the man asked for a few more minutes and that was the last time he had seen the other away from the singer, who was really pleased to see the amount of money Bryce had managed to gather in his cap for her.

Outside, on Radcliffe's Square Gardens, the night was quiet and it was impossible for one to even think about the raging party that was going on under their feet. The sky was dark and clear by now, but, in the middle of London, no stars were showing their glimmering faces. Feliks couldn't help but miss Scotland in times like this, when he looked up to the sky and expected to see the stars only to be met with that darkness slightly illuminated by the city's lights.

"You've lost a hell of a party, mate."

Ravenwood was taken away from his thoughts when he heard someone talking. Frank was stumbling out from behind a tree, leaning heavily on his cane and smiling. The doctor just watched until the man reached the bench where he was sitting and dropped right beside him.

"I saw the party," he said, laughing softly.

"But you left early."

"I needed a bit of air," Feliks explained, watching the other fiddle with his hat and them put it back on. "Enjoyed yourself?"

"As I 'adn't in years." The man laughed. "We need to come back soon."

"You just stepped out!"

"And I wish I could stay! But Miss Fletcher was already cleaning up and Celestina had to go." The gardener sighed. "She said something about having a meeting with a group of banshees…"

"Banshees?" asked Feliks, arching an eyebrow. "What's she gonna do with them? Put them screaming in the chorus?"

"Who knows, mate? Wizards and witches and goblins and all that stuff. I wouldn't be surprised by banshee chorus girls." Bryce shrugged and then stopped moving and speaking for a moment, as if he had just realized something important. "You know, Mr Tom was right all along."

"What?"

"About magic and witches," he said, his eyes losing a little of its cheerful gleam. "He talked about these things as if they were real. He'd tell his stories and it was obvious that he did think some of it was real… The witches and the fairies and the magic. He liked them, when they didn't plague his dreams. When it happened, he was scared. He was terrified that Merope Gaunt would come back one day. Mrs Mary kept telling him that, even if she did come back, no one would let her enter the house, but he knew we couldn't keep her away because she was a bloody witch and he knew that and no one believed when he said it."

"It's a bit difficult to believe," whispered Feliks, not sure if he should say something. "But now you know it's real. And you were lucky to meet this… magic in a good way. I bet this is the kind of magic Tom enjoyed, right? Cheerful and different from everything we know."

"Yes, I guess," the man muttered, letting his head fall back. "How will we get home?"

"We're going to walk," said Ravenwood, getting up and pulling the gardener with him. "It's almost dawn. Let's go."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I huge thanks to the amazing Vika (highonbooks on FFNet and here), who was kind enough to write the poker game scene, because I don't understand shit about card games and thanks to hebravelyranaway, for the kind review and kudos! As always, please leave a review to say what you're thinking of the story or what can be improved (:


	7. A Tale of Soldiers and Riddles

**A Tale of Soldiers and Riddles**

**.**

**.**

Feliks knew he should be able to see the outline of the furniture of his room, at least, but his sight was blurred, thanks to the absence of his glasses, and spotted with black. His head was throbbing and his eyes ached with the little light that entered the room through the openings of the curtains. Headaches were not unknown to him, but the pain he was feeling now was completely different from what he had felt before.

"Doc?" Ravenwood cowered under the blankets, groaning, as he heard the light knocks on the door, right before it was opened. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

Part of him wanted to answer that, yes, he should and he was going to be in trouble for being late, but another part just wanted to tell Frank that the dead would not rise and run away from the morgue, therefore, his headache was more important.

"Are you all right?" He heard the footsteps echoing and the sound seemed enhanced, making his head throb even more.

"Aye," he lied, burying his face in the pillow and pulling the blankets to cover his head. "Fuck, no."

"What's wrong?" asked Bryce and the doctor wished he could see the other man's face to understand what the tone of his voice meant.

"Headache," he groaned.

"Do you want… Something for it?"

"I think I have some aspirin in the bathroom," said the man, sticking his hand out from under the blanket and waving to the direction he thought the bathroom was.

Ravenwood heard the footsteps go away and then the sound of Frank going through his stuff in the bathroom. Under the blanket, he massaged his temples and groaned as he noticed it didn't help in anything.

"Here it is."

Slowly, Feliks sat up, closing his eyes when the dim light of the room hit him. He stayed with his eyes closed for a moment, before opening them just to see everything blurred and stained with black. He could recognize Bryce's shape right next to him and stretched out his hand to take the pills and the cup of water.

"You look terrible," said Frank, his voice now sounding much lower.

"Thanks," he said and then swallowed the pill.

"I didn't know you had drunk so much last night." The gardener took the cup from his hands. "Can I have some? My head is not so bad as yours, but it's still a bit irritating."

"I didn't. I mean, I didn't drink alcohol. I wanted to… Be able to pay more attention to everything," Ravenwood explained, dropping back to the bed and sighing. "Go ahead."

"Thanks, mate." The doctor heard the noise of the pills rattling inside the glass bottle. "I'll… Leave you by yourself, all right? I'll try to keep the silence. Call me if you need anything."

"All right."

Frank's footsteps were muffled when the room's door was closed. Feliks whimpered softly when a stronger throb went through his head and nuzzled the pillow, trying to find any kind of comfort in it.

* * *

"Come on, wake up."

Frank's voice appeared out of nowhere and reminded Feliks of the pain in his head, which was slowly going away, leaving only his sight affected. When he opened his eyes, Bryce's face was a black spot in the middle of a smudge, but he could make out the mug the other was holding out to him.

"Wha's this?" the doctor asked, pushing himself up to sit and leaning against the headboard.

"Tea," Frank explained, pushing the mug into his hands and placing a packet of biscuits on the bed. "And something to eat."

"Wow." Ravenwood raised a brow and inhaled the scent of the tea while he squinted his eyes to try having a better look on the packet's contents. "Thank you."

"Do you want your glasses?"

"They won't be of much use," said Feliks, taking a sip of the tea and pulling a face. It was strong and far from sweet. "What's in it?"

"Feverfew." Bryce took a biscuit and bit into it. "Mrs. Mary and Mr Tom used to say it helped with pain."

"Oh. Where did you get feverfew, though? I don't recall any of the neighbours having a kitchen garden."

"London is chaotic, but at least it has good stores of many different kinds." The man shrugged and watched as the other continued to drink the tea until the mug was empty and Feliks was once again staring at nothing, trying to notice any change in his sight. "Is it still hurting?"

"Just a little. It feels more like… As if it had hurt so much earlier that now it's still a bit sore." He laughed, remembering the time when he was still seeing patients and trying to decipher their descriptions of symptoms. "It's my eyesight that's bothering me now… And the sounds are still weird, like they are too loud." He sighed, resting his hands on his lap and looking at the biscuit Frank was eating, feeling his stomach turn. "And a bit nauseous… What time is it?"

"Three o'clock," said Bryce, taking the mug and placing it on the nightstand. "Did you feel like this before? Or do you think it's something you drank or eat yesterday?"

"I ate everything that you did and didn't drink any alcohol," he explained. "I've already had headaches, but today it feels more like a migraine…"

The gardener remained in silence for a moment and Feliks decided he hated not being able to see his face and, thus, not knowing what was going through his head.

"Can it be from all the magic you saw yesterday?" asked Frank. He was still keeping his voice in a low tone and the doctor couldn't help but be really grateful for that. "I know you've been seeing these stuff during your whole life, but you've never been in a place full of magical people, right? Maybe it was… Too much?"

"You telling me I'm having a sensory overload from magic?" Ravenwood took a deep breath and laughed softly, picking a biscuit and fiddling with it for a while before eating it.

"You were looking everywhere last night, like everything was too interesting and it was impossible for you to pay attention to just one thing," said Bryce. "Maybe it's not that you're not able to see too much magic without feeling sick after, it's just that yesterday you exaggerated because you were excited about it and it was the first time it happened with such intensity."

"It does make sense." The man ate another biscuit and then slid down to lie on the bed once again, laughing. "We're talking about magic causing a migraine. How crazy is that?"

"It's nuts, yes."

Ravenwood closed his eyes again, rolling on to his side and sighing. He was tired and the headache just increased his weariness. He felt the bed shifting and guessed Frank must have sat down next to him.

"We've been to a magical pub," said Feliks, feeling a silly smile spread on his lips. "There were witches and wizards and goblins and werewolves and vampires… There was a beautiful girl that made you act all dumb that a wizard had to hold you back. You gambled with a goblin and won. And you finished the night by trading some kisses with a singing witch." He took a deep breath, frowning as he felt a wave of pain in his head. "And I thought three inconclusive autopsies were weird."

"It was a crazy night, indeed." Frank's voice sounded distant, his words coming out slower now.

"She had a nice voice. And the other girl, the one who was with the werewolf lady, she had a nice face," muttered Ravenwood, right before furrowing his brows when he felt Bryce's hand petting his head. "Wha's that?"

"What?"

"You're petting my head," he answered, opening his eyes to see the other shrugging. The doctor wouldn't admit it, but the fact was that it was quite relaxing having someone else's fingers on his hair.

"Where are you from, doc?" asked Bryce and Feliks felt the mattress shift again when the other man leaned against the headboard.

"Inverness," he answered. "It's near the Loch Ness. What about you?"

"Little Hangleton." There was a tinge of something sour in the way he spoke the name of the village. It could easily be bitterness, but it nothing prevented it from being some kind of longing.

"And you met the Riddles…?" Ravenwood asked.

"One day, my father was coming back from London and met Mr. Thomas on the train. They talked and he was surprised to see that the snobbish Mr. Riddle was actually a nice person," he explained, laughing. "He was looking for a job, you see. And Mr. Thomas said he needed someone to look after the garden…"

"So you're not the first Bryce to tend those flowers." The doctor laughed softly.

"Nah. Sometimes I helped him with the heavy work. And I worked in Great Hangleton for a while, helping in a farm near the town." Frank sighed, his fingers moving a bit slower on Ravenwood's hair. "Then came the war and I promptly jumped into the army, thinking it would be a great adventure. I remember thinking that I was so much more mature and responsible than Mr. Tom, because I had joined the army and I was going to defend my country, while he was still hiding inside his house, even though he was a healthy 30-something year old."

Feliks tried to imagine a younger Frank Bryce, leaving his village to reach out to the world and do a noble service in the war. A younger Frank Bryce judging the man who was too scared of leaving the house, let alone going to fight in a war… He wondered how much that young soldier would judge his older self for admiring and defending Tom Riddle.

"Then one day we were attacked and there was this boy – he must have been at least two years younger than me -, who panicked and didn't know where to go or what to do. I don't recall his name, I just remember he had green eyes and that they were so fucking wide and he was so scared when it happened," he continued speaking, looking at nothing. "I tried to reach him to pull him back to a safe place and that's when I got shot." He heard Bryce's other hand tapping his bad leg. "The boy died and I was honourably discharged and sent back home. At the beginning, I kept thinking that I had done the right thing, but then the pain didn't stop and my mood kept getting worse because I couldn't stand loud noises or people looking at me and whispering about how the war had messed up with my head."

"I never regretted trying to help that kid, but I don't think I would have rushed into the army if I knew this would happen." Frank's hand remained still for a moment on Feliks' head, before moving again. "I couldn't do heavy work again because my leg wouldn't let me and I didn't even try working with commerce or anything like that because my nerves wouldn't stand the people. My father died soon after I came back and I was alone… Mother had died a couple of years before the war."

"I'm sorry," mumbled Ravenwood.

"Mr. Riddle came and asked me if I wanted to take my father's job as the gardener." The man laughed a bit louder. "And I told him that I would end up killing all the flowers because I knew nothing about gardening."

"And he risked it?" asked Feliks. "He was a brave man, Mr. Riddle."

"He told me his wife would teach me what I needed to know. I told him about my leg and he said it was all right, I didn't need to push myself too much. It was a big garden, yes, but Mrs. Riddle was always around and willing to help with it," he continued. "I was even allergic to it. At the beginning, those flowers made me sneeze my brains out… But the job was quiet and calm. Mrs Riddle taught me everything she knew about gardening and the Riddles were good employers. Soon I sold the house where my parents had lived – the Riddles bought it – and went to live in the cottage in their property."

"And Tom Riddle…?"

"Mr. Tom was… Quiet and aloof. Until the first time I found him outside at night, in his pyjamas and looking as if he had just seen a ghost. His hair was all messed up like yours now, doc," he said, laughing as he ruffled Feliks' hair. "Turned out he was up because he had dreamed about Merope Gaunt – until today, I don't know why he told me this - and I was up because I had dreamed about the damn war again. After that, he started talking and never stopped. He liked to talk, to tell stories, to explain things I didn't know and to learn anything he could, even if it was useless information." The man's hand quieted on the doctor's head again. "Then I understood that there was no way Mr. Tom would have made it if he went to the war. He knew his limitations and he respected them, even as he tried to work on then, slowly. I guess I learned it with him."

"How so?" Ravenwood asked. The pain in his head was still present like a dull ache, but listening to Frank's story helped to distract him a little.

"I loved to hunt, you know? My father and I used to hunt together. It became more difficult after the shot and I had to understand and accept that." He shrugged. "I also found out it was not that fun to hunt alone. The Riddles didn't hunt… They had those beautiful horses and not even in those posh foxhunting they engaged."

"That's interesting. They looked like the kind of people who would enjoy foxhunting."

"Mr. Thomas and Mr. Tom were good with the horses… Mr. Tom was the one who rode them more. There were two: Ivan, a stubborn black beast, and Bilbo, who was really calm and sweet. Tom was good with both of them."

Silence took hold of the room once again. From time to time, Feliks felt the tug of sleep, but tried to stay awake, even if it was difficult to stay awake thanks to Bryce's fingers on his hair. He had slept too much already.

"I never met my father," Ravenwood blurted the words before even noticing and then laughed at his own action. "And I dinnae remember my mum. She died when I was one. I was raised by an uncle and an aunt… That are not really my mother's siblings, but… Aye."

"Oh… I'm sorry."

"I made you uncomfortable, sorry." The doctor laughed. "It's just that you talked about yourself and I thought it was fair that I shared something too."

The gardener laughed.

"What happened to your father?"

"I don't know. He was never around. My aunt says mum told her he couldn't be around, but that we shouldn't judge him for that… He would be there if he could. We never understood if it meant he had died," Ravenwood explained.

"So, Ravenwood…?"

"My mother's surname."

"It's a nice name. Feliks… Any middle name?"

"Darius."

"Feliks Darius Ravenwood," said Frank, slowly. "If I didn't know you, I would say you're one of the wizards of the Black Siren, judging by your name."

" _Ha._ A wizarding name."

"You just need a magic wand now."

"And magic," said Feliks, finally opening his eyes and looking up to the other man. The black spot that had shadowed Frank's face before was now hiding just half of it. "What about you? Any wizarding middle name?"

"Frank Khaled Bryce. I guess one of us has to be the Muggle, right?"

"It's a nice name nonetheless," said Ravenwood matter-of-factly. "Heard you telling the goblin that your mum was from Palestine… That's nice. What was her name?"

"Zahrah. Dad was Anthony. Your mum's?"

"Rovena."

"What's wrong with your family and the wizarding names?"

"It's an Albanian name," he explained. "And, no, we're not of Albanian ancestry. My grandfather happened to know the country or something like that."

"And why Feliks with 'KS' and not with an 'X'?" asked Bryce. "Mr. Tom's middle name was Felix too, but with an 'X'."

"That's a good question. I know that it's how the Russian write it… They don't have a letter with the sound the X make in the name, so they use the K and S," said the doctor, closing his eyes again. "It means-"

"Lucky, happy," said Frank. "Tom once said he thought his middle name was a nice irony."

Feliks nodded and sighed. Sleep was tugging on him again and, this time, he gave in.

* * *

Feliks Ravenwood should have known that his absence would not be well accepted by the Chief Inspector. The man spent the next few days working late to try and make up for the day he had lost thanks to his migraine. The dead didn't mind, of course, but his work was not done just for them and he had to give answers to the investigators and families, aside from needing to fill a lot of paperwork.

"Did you take a look at these things?" asked Frank, during dinner, after he had arrived from a particular exhausting day (a body found floating down the Thames and another half decomposed in a dumpster).

"Not really," he said, looking up from his food to see the other man spreading seven small sheets of paper (two of them were made of parchment) next to his plate. The secrets they had won at Coppersnout's table. "Just one talking about the Minister for Magic having an affair with… Who?"

 _"_ _The wife of the_ _Secretary of the Secrecy Department,"_ Bryce read on one of the papers. "' _Dumbledore spotted in Berlin by one of the aurors appointed to keep track of Grindelwald's activities'… 'Lestrange treasure hidden a few meters from the Chalice Well'_."

"Treasure?" asked Feliks, before taking a bite of his food and frowning, swallowing it quickly. "Did you put pepper in the mashed potatoes?"

"A visit to the Chalice Well would be interesting," the gardener whispered. "Yes, I did."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because mashed potatoes are wishy-washy," he said and sorted through the papers again. _"'_ _The Malfoy heir is gathering money to buy another house in the countryside',_ good luck to the Malfoy heir."

"Let me see." The doctor reached for another piece of paper. _"'_ _Black heiress soon to be married to Potter. Rumor has it she'll be disowned.'"_

"What's with all the heirs?" asked Frank _. "'Alphard Black to be disinheritance to be announced next season.'_ These Black kids must have done something really bad."

 _"'_ _Hogwarts teacher warns about the threat of a new Dark Wizard…'_ " Feliks began to read but ended up letting his voice fade as he finished reading the sentence in silence. _"'_ _After murder of Muggle family. Department of Magical Law Enforcement denies it.'"_

When he looked up again, Frank Bryce was staring at him, his face suddenly all hard lines and suspicion. The man could talk about the Riddles all the day, but his mood changed whenever he remembered the person who killed them was still out there.

"This doesn't make sense, thought," said Ravenwood. "If they're worried about a… Dark Wizard, they would be investigating it, wouldn't they?"

"This teacher doesn't seem to be part of their Ministry." Frank scratched his chin, pensive. "Coppersnout mentioned a 'Dumbles', remember? He said the Ministry just locked Gaunt up to shut up 'old Dumbles'."

"He also said the investigation reports must be at their Ministry," muttered Feliks, feeling a sudden enthusiasm grow inside himself.

"What about it?" The gardener watched him for a moment and then widened his eyes. "You want to invade their Ministry."

"No," said Ravenwood, feeling a stubborn smile tug the corner of his lips. "I just want to pay a visit to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Now we know a little more about the boys. I don't know, one of the things I love the most is to lie down with friends and just... talk? And I feel like it's difficult to see male friendship in midia that have this kind of interaction.
> 
> 1) Rovena: an Albanian name meaning 'holy lance' (it's also how some editions of Harry Potter books translated Rowena Ravenclaw's name);
> 
> 2) Zahrah: an arab name meaning 'blooming flower';
> 
> Thanks very much, hebravelyranaway, for the reviews, I won't be able to reply them right now, but i'll try to do it as soon as possible. I hope you guys liked it (:


	9. The Fortune-Teller

**The Fortune-Teller**

**.**

**.**

"Why do you have so many books about Astronomy?" asked Frank, sorting through the bookshelf on the living room.

"Because I enjoy Astronomy and I like reading about it sometimes," said Feliks, stretching his neck to be able to see the other from where he was standing, by the stove, while he finished cooking.

"Reading about Medicine is not enough?" He heard the other mutter. "Do you have anything on herbs?"

"I happen to have one or two. I can look for it after dinner," he said, turning of the stove and setting the table.

"I do know some stuff about herbs and spices but I it would help to learn more in order not to look like an idiot trying to find something I don't know," said Bryce, approaching the table and sitting down.

It had been almost a month since Frank arrived at London and the man had decided that he had enough of being stuck inside the house while Feliks was at work. He then proceeded to look for a job in the surroundings and found one at a tea shop. It was not what the gardener had expected, but at least his work was about something he already had some knowledge and passion about. It had also improved Frank's mood, giving that now he was more eager to leave the house and get to know London or get motivated about other things aside from mourning the Riddles… He had, for example, even started to try growing a kitchen garden on Ravenwood's minimal garden.

"Tell me," said Frank, serving himself with stew. "Did you see anything different the past few days?"

Feliks laughed. Yes, he had been seeing magic much more frequently now, but he suspected it was because now he knew what he was looking for or at least didn't ignore what, before, he would have thought that was a trick of his mind.

"I think I saw a wizard yesterday," he said. "On Charing Cross… A man with weird clothes and magic trailing behind him."

"What's wrong with wizards and their clothes?" asked Bryce. "I thought the extravagant fashion was just a thing of the Black Siren's clients."

Apparently it was not. Since their visit to the underground pub, Ravenwood had spotted four people he suspected of being wizards and witches and all of them seemed not to understand how the current fashion worked: a man wore a long, velvet cloak in the middle of London, another was wearing garments that seemed to belong to the last century and the witches sported hats and more modern dresses and skirts, but that seemed mismatched or too colourful.

"Talking about the Black Siren," said Feliks, raising his eyes to look at the other man. "I was thinking about going back there this week."

Frank's eyes lit up with excitement. Of all the people, Frank Bryce was the one he would least suspect that would enjoy an illicit wizarding pub. But there he was, beaming at the perspective of going back and Ravenwood suspected it was not just because there was a chance of him meeting Miss Celestina Warbeck again.

"Do you think we can get more information there?" the gardener asked.

"I think it's the only place we'll get more information, for now," he answered. "If we want to go looking for the investigation reports into the Ministry, we need to know how to get in there."

"First we need to know _where_ _is_ this Ministry of Magic," muttered Frank. "I don't think we'll find any information on its location on the Yellow Pages."

"That's exactly why we're going back to the Siren." Ravenwood grinned. He was also curious about how his body would react to the magic he was going to see in the pub now… He wanted to know if he would be able to avoid another migraine thanks to a sensory overload caused by magic.

"Where do you reckon this Ministry is located?"

"I have no idea. I mean, we found the Black Siren under a public garden… Their Ministry could be anywhere."

"Yes, but I think a Ministry would be too big to hide under something."

"They have magic, Frank," said Feliks. "I wouldn't be surprised if they can hide anything anywhere they want."

And that was exactly what worried him.

* * *

Dr. Ravenwood wished he was not so tired the night they went back to the Black Siren. It was a Friday night and he left the morgue and went straight to Radcliffe Square Gardens to meet Frank, who had managed to get to Chelsea without getting lost (the man was still getting used to London and getting lost in the city was still a common thing). The pub underneath the garden was full and cheerful with its jazzy music and delighted clients.

"I see you couldn't resist being away for too long," said Jane Fletcher, approaching the table where they had sat and resting her hands on their shoulders. "Glad to see you again, boys. In what can I help you?"

"Could you bring me some of that whiskey of yours, dear?" asked Frank, flashing the dashing smile that had surprised Feliks so much the first time he saw it.

"Would you like the same, love?" asked Jane, looking at the doctor.

"Oh, no, thanks… Do you have anything that's not alcoholic?"

"There's Gillywater and Butterbeer, which is not alcoholic despite its name," she explained. "It's quite a chilly night out there, isn't it? I think a Butterbeer will suit you."

The witch winked at them and left. When he looked around, Ravenwood caught a glimpse of some already known faces: Alfie was there in the company of Lilah; the beautiful veela named Ludmilla was sitting on the other side of the room, today with a similarly handsome young man that Feliks suspected being her brother, Boris (he was, indeed, very handsome and his face was, too, worth studying, just like his sister's). The group of goblins from their last visit was there too, laughing and showing trinkets and jewellery to each other, discussing their worth and trading items among themselves.

"All right, so… Who do we ask about invading their Ministry?" whispered Frank, watching the other clients.

"We thought we wouldn't me be seeing you again!" They both turned to see Alfie, who was pulling his friend, Lilah, with him towards them. "I told you they'd come back, most people do."

"Good evening," she said, following the wizard and sitting by their table.

"Hello," said Bryce, smiling. "We've been busy; we couldn't find time to come."

"What's important is that, now, you're here," said Alfie, taking a sip of his drink and placing the plate he had brought with him on the table. "Dragon balls? They're delicious."

"I… Just ate a sandwich at work, before I coming here," said Feliks, smiling awkwardly after looking at the weird titbit.

"At Friday, we always save ourselves for eating something here," Lilah explained, picking one of the dragon balls and eating it. "The food here is way better than at the Ministry canteen."

"You work at the Ministry?" asked Frank, leaning in towards the witch, smiling and looking genuinely interested.

"Yes, I'm an exotic symbols analyst," she explained. "Flora is an arithmancer, she's also in the Ministry."

"I'm just a bookseller," said Alfie, pouting. "But I do have gorgeous editions of rare books such as Merlin's teachings on memory charms or _Ye Old Magical Relics_."

"What do the two of you do for a living?" the witch asked, resting an elbow on the table and resting her chin on her hand.

"I'm a gardener… Was a gardener, now I'm working at a tea shop. Still working with herbs and plants, thought." Frank laughed, shrugging. "But I was a soldier. I was in the army for about a year and a half."

"You were an auror?" the wizard asked, arching his eyebrows.

"Auror? No, I mean… I was in the army, the… regular army," Bryce tried to explain.

"He means the Muggle army," said Feliks.

"You're a _Muggle?"_ Alfie's eyes widened.

"I told you they were Muggles," said Lilah, looking pleased to see her assumption was right. "The questions you were asking last time gave you away. But don't worry, what happens in the Black Siren remains in here. And it's not as if the Ministry is too worried about what happens inside a place like this." She went back to look at Frank. "So, the army? You fought in the war the Muggles talk so much about? And then you became a gardener?"

"Yes. I got shot, you see." The man tapped his leg and indicated his cane. "When I came back, I started working as a gardener."

"You know Herbology is one of the fields in the wizarding world that can actually be studied and performed by Muggles and wizards alike," Alfie explained. "Of course it's easier for a wix to work with magical plants because they can use magic to deal with them, but a Muggle can do it too if they have the necessary materials."

"That's really interesting," said Frank. "Maybe I'll go take a look at your bookshop to find a book about this Herbology thing."

"I have the newest edition of _1000 Herbs and Magical Fungi_ , complete with the most beautiful illustration by Wilhermina Miraphoria." The wizard smiled widely. "And I think I still have one or two copies of an older book about magical plants… It had only one edition, it's from 1926. The publisher said the illustrator vanished and they didn't want to update the book with another artist on the lead."

"What about you, sir?" asked Lilah, gesturing to Feliks.

"Dr. Ravenwood talks to the dead," said Bryce, grinning as he saw the shocked look on the wixes' faces.

"You're a necromancer?" asked Alfie, looking a mix of aghast and intrigued, just as Miss Fletcher returned with their drinks.

"I'm sorry for the delay, a couple of harpies were bickering about their foo-" Jane was saying just as she arrived. "Who's a necromancer?"

"I am _not_ a necromancer," the doctor said, making sure to say the 'not' with emphasis before scowling at Frank.

"What? You said yourself that's what you do." The man laughed, reaching for the glasses Jane had brought them. "Thank you, Miss Fletcher."

"How can a Muggle work with necromancy?" Lilah frowned. "We don't learn about it at Hogwarts."

"We don't learn a lot of things in Hogwarts," said the barmaid. "But, really, Mr. Ravenwood, necromancy is not a very well seen kind of magic-"

"I'm not a necromancer, really." Feliks laughed, nervously. Great, now these wizards and witches would think he worked some kind of suspicious magic. "I'm a doctor."

"A doctor?"

"That's what Muggles call healers, love," said Jane, leaning against Frank's shoulder. "But why would you say he's a necromancer if he works with healing, Alfie?"

"Frank just said he talks to dead people," the wizard explained, gesturing to the two Muggles. "How can you talk with dead people if you're a healer?"

"I have a degree in Medicine, this means I'm a doctor or, as you call it, a healer," Ravenwood began to explain, wondering how different the medical field was in the magical world. "My studies in medical school aimed to healing people or at least giving them comfort throughout their illnesses, but after I graduated I specialized in Pathology, which is a field of Medicine that deals with the study of diseases-"

"Isn't that what healing is about?" asked Lilah.

"Aye, but Pathology studies the modification an illness causes to specific organs and how we can identify these changes in order to diagnose a disease," he explained. "I have no idea of how this works in the wizarding community, but to Muggles, a diagnose involves the patient's history, the physical exam and, sometimes, other exams, which can include the histopathological exam… Which is when the doctor takes a piece of the sick organ and send it to us for analysis. We study the tissue and try to find what's going on."

The wixes looked at each other for a moment, confused. Feliks asked himself if this whole concept (cutting off part of an organ and sending it to someone take a look) sounded barbaric to magical people or if they had something similar in their medical field.

"But what does it have to do with necromancy?" asked Jane to Frank, who simply gestured for the doctor to continue his explanation.

"I then specialized in Forensic Pathology, the field which tries to determine someone's cause of death through an autopsy," Ravenwood continued, seeing their faces light up with understanding, even thought there was still a hint of doubt in their eyes. "I work with the police, most of the times. There are autopsies that are performed on people who died of natural causes… You ken, people who died at hospitals or at their homes while being assisted, but what I work with nowadays are with the bodies of violent or suspicious deaths: murders, accidents, bodies found around the city. During the blitz, we had a lot of work with identifying the victims of the bombings."

"And how does that actually work…?" asked Lilah.

"The autopsy? We take a good look at the body, searching for apparent wounds and signs that may indicate the cause of death, and then open them up to look on their insides and see what's wrong in there," he said and he could swear Lilah and Alfie turned a little green. "That's what Frank means by saying that I talk to the dead, because… I like to think of it like that: a conversation without words. We learn a lot about these peoples by looking at their corpses, not just about their death, but also about their lifestyle, medical history and occupation."

"But," muttered Jane, narrowing her eyes. "It is still a kind of necromancy, if you think about it. Not a necromancy involving dark magic or anything like that, but…"

"If you think that necromancy is the art of talking to the dead or divining the future through them," said Lilah. "You're, somehow, a necromancer."

"But-" Feliks started to think of another argument, but just sighed and shrugged. "Aye, call it what you want." If these witches and wizards wanted to see him as some kind of sorcerer who could talk to corpses, there was not much he could do right now.

"You said your job is to find out how someone died," said Miss Fletcher, arching a brow and looking at Frank. "And you said you came to the Black Siren looking for the person who killed your friend."

The man gave her a charming, albeit awkward, smile and waved his hand as if trying to explain something.

"Your friend was murdered?" asked Alfie. "How?"

"That's a great question and that's the reason we came here in the first place," said Bryce, gesturing to Feliks. "Dr. Ravenwood here was the one investigating the case-"

"So you teamed up to go look for the killer?" The wizard now had sparkles in his eyes, as if he had been seeing something really fascinating in front of them.

"A man was killed, Alfred," said Jane, scowling and slapping the young man's shoulder before looking back at the Muggles. "I do hope you manage to find what you're looking for. From what I gathered, your encounter with Copper ended up being productive, am I right?"

"Yes, doll," said Frank, grinning. "It was most productive."

"That's good. Now, if you excuse me," said Miss Fletcher, turning to the doctor and winking before leaving. "At least take a sip of your Butterbeer, doctor. I promise it's not laced with a love potion, although it's tempting."

Ravenwood did taste the beverage and was surprised to find out it was actually good: surely not as strong as the firewhiskey Frank was having, but warm and sweet. He couldn't taste alcohol in it and silently thanked Jane Fletcher for it, as he was still afraid of having another migraine crisis after this visit to the magical pub.

Lilah was now pulling Alfie from the table, trying to convince him to dance (there was no live performance that night, but the song playing in the background was cheerful and dance-worthy). The wizard just showed more motivation when the handsome young man with pale blond hair, the one who apparently was a male veela, smiled at him and demanded a dance.

"There you are." Frank laughed, finishing his glass of firewhiskey while Feliks was still in the first third of his butterbeer. "You just rose from a pathologist to a necromancer."

The doctor laughed, trying not to let it show that he would love if he could truly talk to the dead. If he did possess this gift, he would be able to talk to the Riddles and ask them exactly what had happened, his job would be way easier that way (and a small part of his mind quietly reminded him that if he did talk to dead people, he would even be able to share a few words with his mother).

"Excuse me, gentlemen?"

Both men turned to see a tall, dark skinned woman standing right behind them. She had the subtlest smile on her full lips and a purple shawl covering her dark hair cut short against her head. Feliks could see the gardener's eyes take in every possible detail of the woman's figure (focusing a bit more on the golden ring on her nostril) before he let himself smile too. It was not the charming smile he had in storage for Miss Fletcher or Celestina, but a small, almost sly smile of someone who recognize a good opportunity and is willing to take it.

"Hello, ma'am," said Frank, indicating one of the empty chairs on their table.

"I couldn't help but hear your conversation with your friends," she said, walking around the table and sitting in front of them, her elegant hands folded over the table and making the wood under her fingers acquire a faint violet colour to Ravenwood's eyes. "And I can't help but remember your conversation with Mr. Coppersnout a few weeks ago."

Bryce's expression turned serious for a moment, before warming up again.

"I didn't remember you were there after-"

"I was not eavesdropping," she said quickly and then gestured to her neck. "I was waiting for my partner to show up and trying to come up with an excuse to why I was not wearing her gift anymore."

Feliks remembered the necklace Frank had won on his game with the goblin, a delicate thing with a blue gem hanging from it. He also remembered the said necklace was in the gardener's pocket right now, as they had decided to take their prizes (except the secrets) back to the Black Siren in order to see if they could use them to something useful (meaning Frank thought they'd be able to sell something).

"I meant no offense, Miss…?"

"Zabini, Eleonora Zabini," she said with a smile.

"Well, Miss Zabini, I didn't mean to imply you were eavesdropping," Bryce continued. "By the way, I'm Frank Bryce and this is my friend, Dr. Feliks Ravenwood."

"We've heard about the two of you here." The woman snapped her fingers and soon a small, big-eared and big-eyed creature came running to their table, balancing, on his skinny fingers, a silver tray with a cocktail on it. "You attracted a lot of attention."

"Oh, did we?"

"Of course, Mr. Bryce." Eleonora took the glass from the tray, taking a sip from it while the creature vanished from her side. "Two handsome young man don't pass by unnoticed."

Feliks felt his cheek burn and cursed himself for it. The witch's fingers, now trailing the rim of the glass, left behind a bright violet light, the same thing he saw on her cards the day she was playing with Frank and the goblin.

"And what can we do for you, my dear?" asked Bryce, leaning back on his chair and letting his fingers play with the handler of his cane, which, until now, had been resting against the table.

"Actually, it's what we can do for you." Zabini looked around and waved again. Another woman approached the table, as elegant as the other and with clothes and jewellery just as rich. "This is Valentina and you have something she gave me."

Frank stared at the two women, now sitting side by side with their fingers entwined, before putting his hand into his coat and pulling out the gold string with the blue pendant he had won at his game.

"You mean this?" he asked, handling the jewellery with care.

"Exactly," said Valentina, glaring at the other witch for a moment. Ravenwood wondered how mad she had been when she found out her friend (for the lack of better term) had lost her gift on a gambling table.

"From the way I see it, it's I who have something you want." This time it was Feliks' turn to glare at his friend. He never knew when he should be worried about Frank's sudden surges of bravery and defiance. Especially when the receiving end of this behaviour had a magical wand that could put them down in a split second.

"From the way I see it, you still don't have access to any more detailed information on the death of your friend," said Miss Zabini with a grin spreading across her red-painted lips.

Frank stared at her for a moment and the doctor tried to stop himself from smiling at the lady's spirit.

"All this information is at the Ministry of Magic," said Feliks, finally attracting their looks. He took a deep breath and continued: "Unless you know how we could get to it-"

"That's exactly what we have to offer," said Eleonora and the other witch shifted at her side. "A way for you to enter the Ministry in exchange for the pendant."

Ravenwood looked from the women to Bryce.

"And how do we know you're won't make something up or tell someone in there about us?" asked Frank.

Valentina pouted and pulled a small bag from her lap, opening it and grabbing what looked like a document, much like a passport, then tossing it onto the table. Feliks caught the document and analysed it: it was a little booklet with a purple cover and a 'M' on it. When the man opened it, the insides were made out of yellow-ish pages filled with identification data, which included name (Valentina Pickering), birthday, hair and eye colour (brown/brown), height (1,60m), type of wand (ebony, dragon heartstring, thirteen inches), , the department of work (Department of Magical Transportation) and an identification number. There was also a big M on the top of the first page, Valentina's photo and signature, her fingerprints and a big bright red stamp that crossed all the three pages and that read "WITHDRAWN".

"I know the Ministry from the inside," the witch explained. "After all, I've been working there for almost fifteen years by now. Until about two months ago, when they decided to sack me because of a stray portkey… As if the Minister himself doesn't create non-official portkeys to America or Brazil just so he can enjoy a walk through New York or a day at the beach in Rio de Janeiro. But the moment I create a portkey to take Eleonora on a trip to Finland so we could see a dragon's sanctuary, they sack me."

"They've been looming over Tina since she asked for the divorce," Zabini explained.

"Atticus is still the Junior Assistant to the Minister, though," she groaned. "Even after he made a good money selling some apprehended ingredients."

"He's Junior Assistant for almost seven years now, dear, he's never gonna get out of this position," said Eleonora, petting the other's hand.

"I hope so." Valentina stuck up her nose and then looked at the two Muggles. "You can say, gentlemen, I'm not very fond of the Ministry of Magic at the moment."

* * *

The exchange had been made, or at least the first part of it. Still hesitant, Frank returned the blue pendant to the witches, who beamed at it when Eleonora put it back on her neck. Valentina had vowed to bring them everything they'd need to enter the Ministry a fortnight from that Friday (she even wanted to perform something called an 'Unbreakable Vow' to make them trust her word, but Feliks insisted it was not necessary) and, still smiling (although they didn't know if it was because of the return of her pendant or because of the chance of revenge she'd get with the Minitry), paid another shot of firewhiskey for Frank and another butterbeer for Ravenwood.

"I think you will do great," said Miss Zabini, watching the two Muggles with care. "You're a perfect Gryffindor, no one would even think you didn't come from that house." She pointed at Bryce and, then, at the doctor. "And you have this wizard-y feel about you… What would you say, Tina? Ravenclaw?"

"Maybe," said the other witch. "But sometimes he sounds like a Hufflepuff."

The men didn't even try asking what they meant by Gryffindor or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, imagining it must've been some kind of wizarding slangs. They simply smiled and went on with the conversation.

"We can try to find out," said Eleonora, grinning at the other woman.

"Oh, no, I have a better idea." Valentina pulled her small bag once again, fishing from it a velvet pouch and opening it on the top of the table.

"Oh, no, ladies." Frank laughed, shaking his head as he saw a deck of cards laying inside the velvet. "Not today, I'm sorry. My head is already fuzzy with this whiskey of fire."

"Who said you need a clear hear for this kind of game, hon?" The witch smirked and then turned to Feliks. "But if you don't want it, your friend can play for the two of you."

"I don't know how-"

"Don't be silly. It's not as difficult as the cards Nora plays with your friend and that awful goblin." Valentina giggled and took the deck from the table, turning the cards up and revealing several different pictures in each of them, none looking like a regular playing card. "We're not playing with luck and money here, but with far more interesting things."

"Don't tell me you want to read our futures with cards," muttered Frank, half-laughing, but soon stopped when he noticed how interested Ravenwood seemed to be on the cards.

They watched as the witch shuffled the cards with swift and deft hands until she spread them on the table on a long line. When Feliks looked up to her, she raised three fingers to indicate the number of cards he should take. At first, the cards looked stained with colours (violet and yellow), but, after concentrating for a moment, the man was surprised to see that it managed to vanish, at least for now, so he could choose without any interference. Ravenwood picked three cards with care and spread them on the table, one after another.

"Let's see," whispered Valentina, turning the first card and smiling brightly. "Death."

The picture on the paper was that of a skeleton in black robes and a sickle on its bony hands. Feliks felt a shiver run down his spine and saw Bryce shift uncomfortably beside him.

"Death means change, the ending of something followed by the beginning of another," she explained and then turned the second card. "The Page of Cups… It means you're a creative one, willing to dream and open your mind to everything. You're intuitive and emotional."

"Ravenclaw," whispered Zabini, laughing softly.

"And at last… The Three of Wands. It's change again, but now it's about how you deal with it. Things are changing, your plans are working and it's time for you to embrace this change in your life, revel in it and take the situation in your own hands," she explained, staring at the three cards for a moment. "You're this creative person, full of hope and dreams, and something happened that set a change in your life." She tapped the Death card. "And this change presented you to the Three of Wands and now you have something big ahead of you and it depends of you on how it'll turn out."

Feliks stared at the cards, furrowing his brows. He was a man of science, after all, he was a doctor and he worked with physical proofs: bullet wounds, damaged tissues, symptoms and signals of diseases, medications that had their effects thoroughly documented… But he would be lying if he said those cards meant nothing to him. Just like how he gave in to instinct and decided to follow the colours and lights that had been part of his life forever, he was now choosing to believe in a set of paper cards. Part of him was laughing at this decision, another was glad he took it.

"I know magic exist," said Bryce, making the doctor come back from his thoughts. "I can see it!" He pointed at Alfie and the veela boy, who were now sitting at another table, making their drinks float around them. "But these…"

Before he could continue, Valentina had gathered her cards and shoved them into Frank's hands.

"Shuffle them yourself and pull your cards, Mr. Bryce," she said, winking.

Frowning, the man did as he was told. Frank's hands were as deft and swift as the witch's, although less elegant. The cards bent under his fingers more like they were taking orders rather than as a magic trick (as it had seemed with Valentina's), but, by the end, they were lined on the table, face down, and the gardener was picking three cards randomly without much ceremony.

"There you go," he said, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

"The Tower. Change is upon you too, dear, but for you it was way more difficult. You were sitting in your kitchen, having a nice cup of tea and then, suddenly, it struck you," she said, tapping her nail on the lightening that struck the tower on the card. "It shocked you, scared you and made you think everything was crumbling, but, just as Death means new beginnings, the Tower, too, carries this meaning because with every destruction there must be construction."

Feliks took a quick glance in Bryce's direction. The man's face was serious as he stared at the cards and Ravenwood remembered a few days ago, during their first visit to the Black Siren, the reaction the other had upon finding out that Morfin Gaunt had been locked up without being proven to be the murderer of the Riddles. That day, the death of his friends finally struck him was just like the picture of the lightening hitting the tower.

"The Strength is pretty self-explanatory," said Valentina as she turned a card that showed a woman and a lion. "You have enough power in you to overcome the obstacles in your life, but you're also filled with emotion and fear… And you need to learn how to tame these in order to become balanced enough to analyse a situation and know how to win it. If there's something bothering you – which I think there is, giving the Tower -, try not to jump ahead of everything to act out of impulse. Your emotions are strong and they can be dangerous if you do not learn how to control them."

Bryce cocked his head, still looking at the cards while his lips pressed one against another, causing a small, pensive pout to form on his mouth. He was expectant to see what the last card would bring, even though it all started with his disbelief.

Both Valentina and Miss Zabini giggled when the last card was turned.

Feliks didn't know if he should be scared or delighted, for the Three of Wands was facing them once again.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> As always, reviews are really helpful to let us now what you think that can be improved and what you're enjoying. Don't be shy, I love answering to reviews and being able to talk about the stories. Not to mention this feedback is great to motivate us to continue, as we know people are reading and wanting to discuss it. (:


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